There are some rules you need to literally live by, like: Look both ways before crossing a street. Don't go off drunk with strangers you've only just met in a bar. If your fire alarm is sounding off, you should probably get up and go outside.
Then there are those rules we follow because they are self-imposed or thrown at us by others. These may be rules we learned as little girls; rules we learned from our mother, who learned from her mother, who learned them from her mother, and so on. Women in their 20s tend to be rule-based life forms, especially when it comes to relationships, marriage, children, etc., because they still haven't had the time to figure out what does/doesn't work best for them, as individuals. I myself was a rule-based life form for most of my 20s and into my 30s.
As women in our 40s, if we want to be visible, it is time to start reevaluating some of the rules we learned along the way to see if they fit who we truly are. Let's step beyond "Women in their 40s should/shouldn't do/wear/say ____________ (insert stupid thing here)," and ask, "Why?"
S T O P B E I N G A R U L E - B A S E D L I F E F O R M
I only want to briefly mention gender rules, because I think 40-somethings are beyond that (hopefully), but for the few who still think in gender-based rules, stop. Women do this; men do that. This is madness. You can do anything you want to do, just as men can do anything they want to do. If you want something enough, you make the time and put forth the effort to do it. If you aren't doing that, it might be time to look at what it is you think you really want. You might find that you really want to be doing something else with your life but you are too afraid to go for it. It's ok to change your mind you know. Girls can do anything boys can do (except urinate while standing...boys are much better at it and probably always will be, but if you want to, go for it).
One rule women need to dispose of early in life is the "If I'm not married with kids by 'x' number of years, I'll be considered an old lonely hag." You may be considered an old lonely hag even if you are married and/or do have kids, so we should have nixed this rule a long, long time ago. If you are in your 40s, and still operating on some form of rule-based schedule, fling your schedule--with a mighty flick of the wrist--out the window. On second thought, take any schedule you have and bury it, deep in the dirt where the worms won't even go. At 40, you should have learned by now that life happens while your busy setting up a project plan. I didn't get engaged until I was 40, and subsequently married at 41. When I was in my early 20s, I just assumed I would be married with children before the age of 30! Rule-based life form, I was.
Now that we have the gender and marriage/kid nonsense out of the way, let's move on to the sillier, frivolous self-imposed parameters. "I'm too old for long hair." If you are in your 40s and telling yourself that, you need to cease being a rule-based life form. Some women don't look good in long hair, and some women look better in long hair. Don't look at it from an age perspective, look at it from a you perspective. Do YOU look good in long hair? If you don't think so, try a funky short cut. You can always grow it back out. Hair grows back (for most of us). I have an entire post in the works on hair for women in their 40s.
"I'm too old to wear that skirt." Did someone say that to you, or are you imposing that rule on you? If your 40-something friends are saying that to you, maybe they are jealous of your legs. If you don't have great legs, maybe they are trying to tell you that. Look at the evidence and make a decision based on that, not just someone telling you women in their 40s shouldn't wear short skirts. Now, this doesn't give you carte blanche to start ordering off the 20-something menu or you might reek of a mid-life crisis gone bad. There is some modicum of taste that should be adhered to. I wear skirts that come just above my knees, but my legs don't look half bad. I confess, sometimes I see a woman in public, and I think, "Hmmm, she should not be wearing that." Sometimes I think I'm right, and sometimes I think I'm falling off the no more rule-based life form wagon. A great story of a woman who is not a rule-based life form: My mother-in-law's friend, I'll call her, Sue. Sue is in her late 60s, an artist who spent much of her adult life in SOHO in the 1960s. Sue always wears wonderful clothes. She showed up to my mother-in-law's birthday party last month wearing a lavender tunic and multi-colored striped stockings, and a scarf that didn't match a thing. She looked amazing! She also 'owns' what she wears, and I don't mean that she paid for it, I mean she rocks it! She is a confident woman who says no to being a rule-based life form and I can only hope to be as half as cool as she is in another 20 years!
"Aren't you a little "old" to be going to concerts?" I've heard this before and it makes me feel sorry for the people posing the question. Poseidon and I go to at least a couple of local shows each month. Why are we too old? If it is a band we like, or new music we want to have a listen to, then no, we aren't. Fortunately we live in an area of the country with an amazing music scene, and we usually aren't the only 40-somethings in attendance, so there! We like music. We know this about ourselves, and it is one of our "hobbies" if you will. We are passionate about music, and fortunately, music isn't ageist; music doesn't discriminate.
I will say one thing about concerts, based on an experience Poseidon and I had last weekend at a local show. For those 40-something ladies who come out to see a show once a year because your friend's husband or cousin is in a band, please don't see who can chug the most Coors Light (yuck, I hated even typing that beer) between you and girlfriends, and subsequently falling over people because you passed your limit 2 beers ago. Props to you for getting out of the house to see a show, but please refer back to "there is some modicum of taste that should be adhered to" in paragraph 7ish.
So, as it pertains to continuing to live a fruitless dull safe rule-based life form, I just leave you with this: There is no "too old." You are who you are, and this is what it is. Embrace it, or remain invisible. The joke is on those spending their whole lives taking every precaution to blend in.
What rules have you abandoned? Any other rules we should throw gasoline and a match on in order to cease living rule-based lives?
--Fortuitous Observer
Relevent Posts:
