A few years ago, back when I was still on Facebook, I saw a second-tier celebrity post a picture of herself with the caption “This is sixty.” She posted it on her sixtieth birthday. She was standing in side view, so you could see her flat stomach, thin, fit body, and perky breasts.
Apparently if you’re going to tout being sixty, you’d best look like a conventionally-attractive-as-considered-by-male-dominated-mass-media thirty-year-old.
I turned sixty-one this weekend. Sixty-one doesn’t feel that different than forty-one or fifty-one. I’m in good shape, active, still working, with all my wits about me. I write this newsletter, a podcast and I’m writing a book, while I still do executive coaching and consulting. And hang out with my grandkids.
To me, “this is sixty-one” is saying I’m still here. Still working, still writing, still thinking up new stuff, still in the world.
Which may be more aspirational and inspiring than having won at diet culture.
I don’t feel that different, but the world treats me very differently.
