How do I accept getting older?

Getting older can involve several losses at once: physical changes, possibilities that feel less available, and the way other people now see you. Acceptance need not mean declaring each of these welcome.

I would ask which change is hardest to acknowledge. Sometimes the body is the concern. Sometimes it is the discovery that a hoped-for version of life may not arrive in the form you imagined.

There may be grief to allow and practical matters to address. Health concerns deserve appropriate professional attention rather than an instruction to adopt a better attitude.

You are also more than an argument for or against your younger self. What interests you now? Which relationships have become more honest? You need not prove that ageing is secretly wonderful in order to remain available to the life taking place.

Jing makes room for losses that should not be decorated. I would notice the difference between accepting change and accepting other people's narrow account of what an older person may be.

Some limits are real. Others are expectations disguised as facts: that curiosity belongs to the young, that learning must have a professional purpose, that you should already be finished becoming someone.

You may need to alter the form of a valued activity. Alteration does not always destroy its meaning. Walking more slowly can still be walking with someone you want to hear.

Perhaps acceptance includes choosing carefully where to spend effort: caring for what can be supported, adapting where necessary, and resisting the idea that your remaining life is only a commentary on the years already used.

I object to the phrase "age gracefully". It sounds like a performance review issued by people who would prefer the furniture to stop making noises.

I intend to age with occasional complaints, inappropriate curiosity and a perfectly reasonable interest in comfortable shoes. Grace may join us if it can keep up.

Jang says some expectations are disguised as facts. Precisely. Nobody informed my knees that I planned to remain young indefinitely; meanwhile someone has decided I should no longer try a ridiculous new hobby. My knees and I will consider that separately.

Attend to the body you actually have. Ask for help where needed. But do not surrender every future adventure to a birthday.

If dignity requires never looking foolish again, it has arrived at the wrong address. I have several projects unfinished.