I was talking to my life long friend, Ben, last night. He’s Scorpio. He said he felt it was important you see yourself age in small ways because if it hits you all at once, it’s devastating. I heartily agree and was thinking about this before we talked.
There’s is a point that everyone comes to when the veil drops and they see that whatever it was they had five or ten years prior, it is no longer theirs. It may be breasts that don’t sag or man might wake up one day, to the fact his is no longer a young stud.
Once this hits you the first time, eventually you realize it’s not *a* hit but the beginning series of them. If you’re smart, you start to figure out how you’re going to adapt to this, and try to age gracefully.
It’s become fashionable in recent years to say you’re going to stave off aging, but just making a statement like that is ludicrous if you look just 1/4 inch below the surface. You’re gonna do what? What does it mean, if your priority in life is to deny a natural process? What does that tell of your soul and psyche and your intellect for that matter?
In reality, things decay and with Saturn in Scorpio, we’ll all be aware of that. If you want to avoid being hit by a truck, take my friend, Ben’s advice and watch yourself age in small increments. I am pretty sure we’re supposed to progress in our lives and this is one of the ways it’s done.
How do you feel about aging?
Aging in small increments has been my approach… Reading glasses was the first indication a couple of years ago. I’m OK with aging. I’m very aware of the subtle changes in my body. A little less elastin here and there. C’est la vie.
Oddly, Ben and I both act older then we are am promote this. For example, I started saying I as going on 50 when I was 42. I’d tell my doctor this all time and she’d laugh.
But really, I was right.
We used to honor old people in our culture and we’ll eventually get back to this. You can spare yourself a lot of pain and mistakes if you catch on today – aging is inevitable.
You’ve really got to develop other aspects of yourself. Your soul, your spirit, your intellect, your perspective. Something. Otherwise you’re headed for a wall and in some cases, the mother of all walls.
I’m all for doing the best with what you have. Yes, let’s be clean and nicely put together. However, I can’t be with someone so shallow that all they care about is looks. This is why I want a Soul Connection when I get married again. I looked different at 19, 29, and now next week at 49. This is what I look like. Love me, or take a hike! True Love loves you for the Soul you, and they are automatically attracted to your looks.
I think growing old together in a happy relationship is an awesome part of life. When one person is obsessed with looking young – that is completely annoying.
I have Saturn Venus ASC Aquarius. I yam what I yam.
It’s best done with grace.
My mother did this poorly and I learned from that.
When I was 28, I told people I was 32. Now that I’m 32, I like to tell folks I’m 35. People think I’m weird to do this, but I like it.
Aging doesn’t scare me. Society’s misplaced values on youth and beauty do.
There was a recent black and white photography exhibit of people who had botched plastic surgery. They were quite beautiful in an eerie way and also rather surpisingly similar looking.
It has really hit me this past year in a big way! Saturn has opposed my Sun in Aries and squared my Moon in Cancer and I just sort of felt older, and I feel like I look older too. Health issues forced me to pull back and I’m not exercising as much as I would like to, which is really tough for an Aries! It’s so bizarre really, cause 3 years ago I felt gorgeous and young and alive, but Saturn really kicked my butt!
I’m sure lots of good will come out of this as well, as Saturn does bring his rewards, so we shall see.
Excellent post. I love the painting too – that man’s gnarled hands depict strength, not decepitude.
There is a part of me that is ever conscious of the end of things, death included. Lately though it has become more real to my physical body. For example I have a lower back pain and my doctors are testing me for every single thing and the temptation is to feel victimized by my fragile body. But I know that’s an excuse, a cop-out, somehow.
Truth is our time on Earth is not guaranteed. My dad taught me this. His family left him for dead during WWII and he was able to forgive them (long story). I think some people age gracefully because they are able to forgive.
Americans are especially toxic with the youth myth. I saw an article on using human hormones (from pregnant women’s urine) to combat aging. Is it really so bad to get old???
I have Venus in Taurus and I so appreciate beauty…in all it’s forms. I also have Virgo rising. And it is so true that love is in the details. I see age as detail. Also true that with age comes wisdom…with all the details, the craftsmanship, the depth. I look at my body (turning 48 next week!), and the bodies and faces of all us “older” folk, and think, look at the life that’s been sculpted and lived and being revealed sometimes delicately, sometimes boldly. Why would I want to erase or deny any of that? It’s my life, by golly, literally etched out wrinkle by wrinkle (!)…and definitely worth celebrating, even revering!
The BEST antidote: The JOY of Grandchildren!!!
I am looking forward to it. Actually not the 50s or 60s, but the 70s, 80s + is where I want to be. It’s funny, my neighborhood is 50% plus rental so a lot of young kids, I get called old lady all the time when I’m out in my garden (big sun hat and glasses as I burn easily). I’m under 40 fyi. The rest of the neighborhood is widows of college profs and a *few* younger families, they are rare though, most bought homes out of the city not in the almost downtown range.
I feel like I fit in with the old ladies much better than the young-uns. Although a number of them are fascinated with my garden.
Thank you, Elsa for the Welcome! Now, if I can just get past my Moon in Virgo’s “worrying about my children’s/grandchildren’s future, in this current transit of Pluto” – I will be more than happy!!
I hate the plastic look of plastic surgery and botox. But I cannot pretend that I find aging easy. I had a bunch of t-shirts made up. They say:”Forget my inner child, I am trying to embrace my outer crone.” I am still trying to embrace my outer crone. My kids are always on my case to let my hair go gray. Sorry, but I tried. The gray hair didn’t look right on me. My hair has been black since birth when I had a head full of dark curls. My pale olive skin always contrasted my dark hair and eyes. With the gray hair, I just faded away. So I dye my hair. Likewise, I hate dull, sedate middle age clothes. Shopping for clothes is a challenge. My middle age body doesn’t fit junior sizes, but I will be damned if I wear dull, baggy old lady clothes. It doesn’t help that I live in a conservative area. Way too many young women dress middle aged decades before they should. I had to switch hair dressers because they wanted to give me a shorter old lady bob. I accept that I am aging. It is preferable to the alternative, but I going to age on my own terms.
This hits really close to home.
I looked the best of my whole life 4-5 years ago. Then I got hit with some health crises, which affected my looks, and also resulted in a LOT of weight gain. Every day there’s a new downturn.
It’s made me realize how much I’ve relied on being pretty my whole life. I was aso very smart, educated, funny and a great business person. But now it turns out my looks were more important to me than any of that other stuff. Looking back I traded on my beauty, was treated better and got more opportunities because of it. I expected it!
I’m going back to my hometown for surgery and I’m embarassed to see my best friend because I don’t want her to see how I look. I know my priorities are messed up and it’s a rude awakening to become “invisible.”
yep, 42 – having the mid-life transits – yeah, they suck. I can’t complain too much actually because I still have people think I am 25. 😀 People have always thought I am 10 to 15 younger than what I am – I think it is not just that I look younger but I don’t act all old and stuffy. Even though I have health problems that make me feel tired and old sometimes – I know my personality still thinks young. I still have some cute stuffed animals and will keep them because I like them. I buy clothes that look good on me – not because I think I should dress a certain way because I am certain age. Age = biological age – nothing to do with soul. ( many of us probably have old souls – older than our biological ages). But I will say yes, the vanity comes out when I see some of the facial skin starting to sag and the lines there. Can’t help but want to look perfect as Virgo does. 27 was my pretty year in my opinion – although I still think I look good now. Too bad all the single men my age are getting vain and going through mid-life crisis and want to date 20 year old. Boo on them. Wonder if women handle aging better than men – but there is a double standard there in society. Men are distinguished as they age but women are just considered old and broken some how and I think it has to do with menopause and not being able to bear children not really what they look like.
Beauty was always important to me, but I have a Capricorn moon and always relied on deeper values. Now that I almost qualify as a senior, I’m pretty happy with how I look and where I am in life. I do have a family member close to my age who keeps getting plastic surgery but she can’t hide the fact that her kids are completely dysfunctional and getting worse. Every time I look at her, I think that if I spent that much time and money on externals, the price of excessive vanity would be that something bad would happen to someone I love. Did anyone see the movie or read the book, Something Wicked This Way Comes? The dowdy middle-age schoolteacher who sells her soul just to be beautiful gets her wish, looks in the mirror and sees beauty — but just for a second, because she goes blind.
My mother, aged ninety when she died of cancer, was an erect, elegant and attractive Virgo rising 6th house Aquarian Sun. A taxi driver thought we were sisters when I was in my early sixties. Now I’m 69 in April and though I dye my hair and soften that with streaks, the only makeup I wear is kohl in the eyes and mascara. This helps me accept who and how I am.
Just left a potentially demoralising relationship with a man who was my age but looked 25 years younger. Devastatingly charismatic and handsome. Women flirted openly thinking that I was his mother! He was soooo adoring that I became overconfident. I sailed through all that adoration, only to find that my Scorpio dreamboat has bi-polar infidelity episodes and has women here and there. A secret life. I’m pleased to say that my Venus in Taurus trine Neptune square Chiron in the 7th is handling the breakup with philosophical dignity and I’m still not wearing makeup on my skin. my Aries Sun, Leo moon gave him two barrels as I left. Cést la vie!
I’m in my late forties and happy with the way I look and the way I’m aging. Lots of Gemini here with Libra rising and I have a slender build and zero health issues so people are usually surprised to hear I’m closer to 50 than 40. I’m vain (and I’ll admit it) so I’m glad I’m aging well physically. However, it’s not aging that freaks me out–it’s the feeling that I’m running out of time and that I won’t be able to do everything I would like to do before I die. The veil dropped several years ago when both my kids reached young adulthood and I wished I could do it all over again but do it better. For the first time I saw my weaknesses and mistakes as a mother and as a woman. I’m trying so hard now (Saturn going through my first house and Pluto hitting my fourth) to be a better (more mature) parent to my stepkids and putting more energy into my homelife even though I miss working those sixty-hour weeks during the high point of my career. I think aging — true aging — brings us face to face with our regrets and our successes.
I think this is GREAT advice @Elsa… in small increments. I went for a while in denial & that’s a big MISTAKE because it DOES hit you like a pile of poo, if you do that. I’m glad I woke up as I have- it would have been way worse in say 10 years of kidding myself.
Thing is, you can’t change it. You can stave it off for a while in various ways, but it’s inevitible.
I am in the process of working out how I want to go about it all. Really, it’s just the same as how you work out what sort of chick you want to be in your teens. There ARE lots of options!
It rings so probable that Saturn in Scorpio will make us all think more of aging and mortality. Hopefully it will bring about structure in deeper thinking, so maybe many will avoid the trap of surface? For sure beauty also comes from within.
Elsa it’s so interesting that you (and your friend Ben, and also poster Jennifer) tell people you’re older than you really are. I wonder where your Jupiter is placed. Many years ago an astrologer told me that my Jupiter in Leo in the 12th will make me always feel like an “eternal teenager”, so true.
Flip – “I’m going to age on my own terms”, what a statement, I love it!
I just turned 30, yesterday .. I often get ‘guessed’ at 25, 27. Okay, on my 30th birthday someone literally told me they thought I was 17!!!
I like this! Gives deep perspective
I read every post and my mind is blown away by the smarts and yes, wisdom, in these perceptions. Is insight from astrology part of the reason? I like to think so, but whatever is the catalyst for such progressive thinking, I congratulate you all. For me, the wisdom of age is realizing you can transcend it – and not fall into the trap of defining yourself, as so many women do, by your age. Love to all, Olivia
I’ve been getting paranoid about aging in the last couple of weeks. I turned 32 in March. Starting to get fine lines- little crows feet and parenthesis lines around my mouth and my already thin face is losing more volume. I don’t like it one tiny bit. I guess I’m vain…but I also have depth. I think, deep down, I’m afraid of being unlovable, that people will feel repulsed and turn away from me. I’m afraid of disappearing etc. I have Pluto in Libra. But you’re right, better to watch it in small increments. I’m really blowing it out of proportion, but it did hit me: it’s down hill from here.