Thursday, April 16, 2009

Fierce at 50. When You Are 20. Or 30.


Once you hit 50 there’s only so much you have to work with in the fierce department. Those with inordinate style can just push forward as is. You know the ones. They own the perfect necklace from Uganda. Or the perfect Lily Pulitzer shift dress that shows off their tennis-toned arms. Style comes in all political guises. The rest of us have to hope our 20-30 year old selves didn’t, rolling around in their young ignorance, trash our 50-year old selves. So here are a few words your 50-year old self would like to tell you.

1. Don’t diet any more. Please, please, please find a way to eat that can be sustained for years and year and years. 50-60 years. Because your metabolism will slow down. And what you eat now will make you put on weight later. You don’t want to be too heavy because your joints will hurt and your doctor will yell at you. So find a way to eat well. This will include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and chocolate. It will include very little fast food. Just do it. Don’t try to lose weight. Just find a way to eat well.

2. Appreciate your skin and your flesh and your hair because they will change. Put lovely-smelling unguents on them and hope for all that is promised. Spend only as much money as you are comfortable with.

3. Move around often. Don’t start running marathons unless you like them. They may wreck your knees anyway. Fidget. Take the stairs. Tap your feet. Walk to the market. 30 minutes a day of brisk walking ought to keep your body from disintegrating any faster than it will of its own accord.

4. Wear sunscreen. Not just at the beach. Or by the pool. Or in the desert. All the time. If you drive a car, especially wear it on the left side of your face. On your left hand. When I look in the mirror I see liplines and spots on the left side that I don’t have on the right side. Car damage. Wear sunscreen on your neck too. Amazingly, your neck isn’t as invisible to everyone else as it is to you.

5. Wear lots of tight pants and teeter around in high heels. Do it now. Go to bars full of people and dance where everyone can see you. Later in life you either will think it’s a really stupid idea and not worth the discomfort and so will have missed your chance, or you will regret not doing it and you will have to try it and you will wander around looking like you don’t know you are 50. You don’t want to wander around looking like you haven’t figured out your age. If you want to look like you like being 50, and think it’s fierce, all the better. But clueless is rarely a good look.

6. Follow fads. Dress as far on the edge as you are comfortable. By the time you are 50 if you dress on the edge people will automatically assume you are either an art gallery owner or a homeless person. By the time you are 50 you will be tiring of scanning your closet. You will be tiring of scanning fashion sites and looking to reinvent yourself. Unless of course you do it for a living. Otherwise you will want to have found a style that you like and you will want to stick to it. So experiment now. Even with perfume.

7. Travel. See the world. Do whatever it takes to realize that there is no one way to do anything. That the question of absolute moral right is a tough one for which many have died unnecessarily. Open your mouth a lot. This will mean you eat many foods, kiss a lot of men, take deep breaths and say what you want to say. And it will means that by 50 you will be spared the closed lip look of a woman who doesn’t like what she sees. Avoid pursed lips.

You don’t want to show up at 50 with regrets. And I find I regret what I didn’t do far more than what I did. After all, there’s almost always a path out of a wrong step, or if not, a way to heal in the days that follow. Whereas you lose the moment where you do not do it forever. In that way moments have of getting lost.

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40 Comments:

Blogger Lori said...

What great wisdom you share! It is all true, even though it still made me laugh. In a couple of years I will turn 50. I don't want to think about that right now. I love your last paragraph...I really should print it off and hang in where I will read it every day. Great post!!!!

April 16, 2009 at 1:31 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I love this post, thank you!!!

April 16, 2009 at 3:03 PM  
Blogger Kate said...

I LOVE this! In fact, I'm thinking of following it right now at 26. Thanks for a great post :)

April 16, 2009 at 3:15 PM  
Blogger Meg said...

So, question: Does that last point hold true about employment too? If you can't find something you quite love, should you keep looking, even if that makes your resume look more... "jumpy." As they say. Or should you stick with it, and make it work. I think I know the answer, but I'm not 100% sure, and my inner dialogue is always chattering about this. So, from one almost 30 year old, to you.

April 16, 2009 at 3:37 PM  
Blogger LPC said...

Meg, in my opinion, when you are only almost 30, jump. I believe that at your age, you can still say, this is what I am going to do next. By the time you are 40, it might be that that next thing has defined your life. But I don't think has to be true at not-quite-30. Which is not to say I advocate leaping without looking. Homework is good, but, life is short. That's not just an idiom. And when you are smart and educated and personable and awfully nice too, jobs aren't so hard to find later in life as you might think. In my experience.

April 16, 2009 at 4:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have been reading your blog obsessively since I found it but today was the first time I felt the need to comment - this was beautiful and eloquent and I may just print it out and hang it somewhere where I can read it every day. Thank you so much for sharing.

- Yasmin

April 16, 2009 at 4:17 PM  
Blogger Julia said...

I think you are right about a lot of things, but definitely the sunscreen on the hands and neck. I am a believer in that one.

April 16, 2009 at 5:32 PM  
Blogger Mary said...

I love this post! You share wonderful wisdom.

April 16, 2009 at 6:48 PM  
Blogger Dani @ Weddings Fresh said...

highlights:

"You don’t want to wander around looking like you haven’t figured out your age."

"By the time you are 50 if you dress on the edge people will automatically assume you are either an art gallery owner or a homeless person."

...i often think these things while i am public and thank God i have personal awareness :)

wonderful post!

April 16, 2009 at 7:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love it. Simply wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

April 16, 2009 at 9:29 PM  
Blogger LPC said...

Thank you all so much for the kind words. I also wanted to say, I know I refer to men in one line, but I am in no way blocking out those with other preferences. Someone said a previous post was patriarchal. Life was pretty dang patriarchal in my youth so I am trying to learn new modes of language.

April 16, 2009 at 10:16 PM  
Blogger Amanda said...

Oh yay. This makes my whole day. THANK YOU for the advice. And I'm happy for your Meg advice too, for I'm worrying about the same things. Oh yay.

April 17, 2009 at 6:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes. Just yes.

April 17, 2009 at 11:15 AM  
Blogger Muffy said...

This is a wonderful post. Thank you for sharing your infinite wisdom!

April 17, 2009 at 5:00 PM  
Anonymous The Preppy Princess said...

Absolutely the best post we have read all day Miss LPC, you nailed it on so many fronts! Wow!

The neck part is very funny, but appear to be true, and the pursed lips? Spot-on. And moving around more - painfully true!

You really need to be doing a book, a magazine article at the very least. Seriously.

Sending you grins and giggles for your weekend!
tp

April 17, 2009 at 5:18 PM  
Blogger indigo said...

props, lady.

you are indeed wise. i found that the moment i turned thirty- bam!- there was my sense of my own mortality, and the understanding that a sequinned jumpsuit was never appropriate attire for a wedding.

you are also funny. brava.

April 17, 2009 at 6:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish some wise woman would have written these words of wisdom to me, when I was in my youth. I'm going to make sure my daughters and granddaughters get this message. Thank you...thank you.

April 17, 2009 at 9:09 PM  
Blogger hellosteffi said...

this was a really nice post, i enjoyed this. i think i will take your advice about the experimenting in fashion because i do think my style is a bit subdued. :)

April 18, 2009 at 3:25 AM  
Blogger LPC said...

In sum, put on those sequinned jumpsuits now, make sure you have a sense of humor later.

April 18, 2009 at 9:50 AM  
Blogger Lady C said...

Thank you! i dressed up in hotpants, went out, got tipsy, laughed, and had a fabulous time, i'm 26 but it was the first time i'd done it in ages! i had your voice in my head telling me not to care, sage advice indeed...

April 20, 2009 at 2:30 AM  
Blogger cara said...

You're wonderful and wise and reading your blog is ever so comforting.

April 20, 2009 at 6:22 AM  
Blogger LPC said...

And you are dear. And very talented besides.

April 21, 2009 at 7:18 AM  
Anonymous P. said...

Item six is what I live by - I'm very bad at all the rest, but I'm good at having adventures. xoxo

April 21, 2009 at 9:36 PM  
Blogger Poppy B. said...

I've been wearing at least spf15 since they invented it ... I didn't learn to drive until I was 35 ... I STILL have more age spots on the left side of my face. Damn it!

April 22, 2009 at 5:46 PM  
Blogger Red Lipstick said...

I quite late, I know, but I only just discovered your wonderful blog. The food thing is so true. After spending my teens and 20s not eating, I now have conditions that I will have to carefully watch. I think if I had known the outcome I would have just tried to be healthy instead of not eating at all. I do feel blessed that its not any worse and perhaps soon enough to counteract. Thank you for a great blog!

September 2, 2009 at 3:06 PM  
Blogger LPC said...

You're welcome. And not late at all. I think we are really just getting going...

September 2, 2009 at 6:18 PM  
Blogger east side bride said...

I missed this one. I love this.

October 18, 2009 at 10:42 AM  
Blogger Cate S said...

LPC, I have been reading a while but I couldn't comment on my old computer, it didn't like blogger's embedded comment form. But here I am, and I had to say thank you for this one. A classic.

October 19, 2009 at 9:17 AM  
Blogger LPC said...

Hi esb! Hi Cate! Good to hear from you both. Makes me smile.

October 19, 2009 at 10:14 AM  
Blogger Mise said...

It's still some years before I know whether you're right with this advice, but I suspect you are, and will take a punt and follow it. I like that for such an obviously sensible person, you're advocating the perfect degree of insensibility.

October 29, 2009 at 5:08 AM  
Blogger LPC said...

Yes, that's true. I am advocating some insensibility. Because life is so big and wonderful, I hae come to believe that sometimes we have to put cognition aside and just move through it all. When I get uncomfortable with that, I think about it as gathering data...

October 29, 2009 at 7:23 AM  
Blogger Rachel said...

thanks for the advice. sorry for all the comments all in one go, I have finally had time to sit down & read today.

November 13, 2009 at 7:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a wonderful post! I came over from Souris Mariage and ended up reading most all of your posts while my daughter was napping. I hope you don't mind, but I've printed it and stuck a copy in the journal I keep for her and will give to her when she is grown.

I am 22, and everyone my age is perpetually tan despite the (north midwest) locale. I've never once been to a tanning booth, wear sunscreen whenever outdoors, and don't plan to change that. I tell them all I'll have the last laugh when I don't have sunspots and leather-skin thirty years from now. But I had never thought about driving, so perhaps I should consider that!

I "teeter around in high heels" quite often, but I'll have to take your advice about dressing on the edge. I tend to be rather conservative in dress (especially since I find most of today's fashion quite dreadful) but once in a great while I do wonder how I'd feel if I just gave up and bought that sequin-covered dress or the jacket with the giant ruffle collar.

December 9, 2009 at 1:47 PM  
Blogger LPC said...

Baker - I am so touched that you would want to give this to your daughter. Even though now she is still young enough to nap. So sweet. My own daughter read this, showed it to her friends. Having a daughter is something that even though mine is your age, I still don't really understand the full meaning of. The sequinned dress might be just wonderful. Especially if you escape the sun marks I have on my left hand:). Driving. Happy Holidays to you.

December 9, 2009 at 2:36 PM  
Anonymous aiisa g said...

Oh, thank you for this post! Loved it and will be linking to it. I too will be printing myself a copy. Looking forward to following you here.

December 10, 2009 at 3:43 PM  
Blogger Heather said...

I just found your fantastic blog. I love it!! I am in my mid 30's, working my way up the corporate ladder and balancing that with my hunky husband and my precious 4 year old son. 2 years ago, I found my true self and have been living my life to the fullest since then. I dress and act as I please, loving every moment of this precious time that I have. You are very inspiring. Thank you.

March 6, 2010 at 5:36 PM  
Blogger A. Whitney said...

Thank you so much for blogging. I don't know if it's because you're not my mother or because my mother would never say these things, but I truely appreciate your thoughts and advice!

March 30, 2010 at 10:37 PM  
Blogger M.C.S. said...

Amen sister!

June 20, 2010 at 5:51 PM  
Anonymous Rochelle Spencer said...

Now this is advice I can live with! I just found my first gray hair today, and I needed to hear your message about appreciating your body in every stage, through every change. Thank you! :)

August 29, 2010 at 7:19 PM  
Blogger Hill House Ramblings said...

Goodness, what a brilliant post. I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

H.H.

October 26, 2010 at 6:09 PM  

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