My twenties

It’s garbage day, and I’m sending away my twenties. It’s about time really, since I’m nearly fifty. 

Forever working to return to our pre-pregnancy weight, looks, jeans, etc. complaining about grey hair, stretch marks, sagging, wrinkles, and chubby thighs, we reject the bodies that we will spend the rest of our lives in. 

I’m ready to let go. What did I get for working out three hours a day at the gym and sharing clothes with my teenage daughter? The worst boyfriend of my entire life. Not really the best reward. 

Now that I’ve switched my focus outward to my community, my friendships, my family, and my home, I’ve been infinitely happier. I’m less concerned with the size of my body, and more concerned with the size of my life. 

So I’m sending away my youth, and I’m humbly requesting that society allows me to age. I am ready. I want to embrace my wrinkles, be allowed to love myself, as I am, unconditionally. 

As a post-pandemic society embraces grey hair and wireless bras, I am going to lean in. 

In three years my youngest child will be graduating from high school, and I will turn fifty. I don’t want to, or need to, look, feel, or be anything like I was in my youth. I’ve learned so much since then. I’m ready to grow old, and it’s not going to be with people who care anything at all about my appearance. 

So I’m sending away my twenties, and making room for my fifties, which I’ve always known would be the best years of my life. Now I know why. We’re free.