Give it up. Stop.
If you do a search on the internet for anything related to aging being an awful experience, you are hit with a wave of American magical thinking and sales. And if you are lucky enough to be identified by your search engine as a black person, you get the same magical thinking plus white Jesus. (Yep, I am now starting sentences with “and”, because at this point…) Why is no one willing to put it out there that life after forty is dicey? Presumably you can still sell a program or supplement or a cream next to that truth or develop a 30 day program around it and yet nothing. The relentless optimism from the boosters had seemed to stop others from saying what needs to be said because it is felt intensely by so many. Getting older sucks, it’s depressing, and it takes too long now that we can live to 100. It means regret and rumination will last decades longer than in the past. In an era of youth-obsession (and that makes sense too, why would a culture choose to revere decline and loss) and anti-aging fervor you can’t rightly expect people to be all hooray over marching real slow towards a dirt nap and getting poorer with each step.
If I had to group what I have seen over the past decade of late night wine-soaked online searches it might go like this:
Fit and Forty Plus drivel. Stop drinking that wine and join a gym class where you won’t feel body shamed by your old dry carcass. Basically, buy this book and join a fitness regime that you can do on the carpet in front of your 50+ inch tv before you settle down with a glass of wine and watch a foreign murder mystery or-yeesh- a romance- because you have neither romance or mystery IRL. Get super thin, because that’s real valuable when you are already invisible and no clothing is made for you. Either get great at kicking your sagging tits down the street or save up and get under that needle. Better to look like a wax carving before it’s melted than after it’s melted.
Life begins at 40 drivel/40 is the new drivel. Again, buy a book. This one has recipes with limited ingredients that are overpriced, proprietary, and so rare that you have to order them on the website listed in the book. There’s also a detailed schedule that you won’t be able to stick to because if you had any kid of willpower you wouldn’t have to begin this new awesome life. You know what, just get the e-book that way you won’t be tempted to pass it on and you can just delete it after the 5th read.
Surprise Perimenopause. And you don’t even know about menopause but you can see that your not-that-great since the 90s body is deteriorating and you can’t catch a dick, not even the one in your top drawer. Finally the world hates your body as much as you do. Bonus for consistency of thought, though. But hey you’re about to get some wisdom because now all you want to do is read about womanism and stuff in literary magazines and also, by this CBD crème. The accent means it’s pricey, that’s all. Also, “Ya barren!”
Are you still reading? Can I help you with something?
You can reinvent yourself drivel. Reinvention drivel is subsidized by stories of women in either entertainment/modeling or super fucking high finance/bro tech/big law who are now slumming it in jobs that for the rest of us were a hazy endgame. Instead of retiring they want to take all the glam non-profit jobs or maybe teach because hell, any asshole can step into the classroom--et voila Dangerous Minds. Maybe they started a handbag or jewelry or makeup collection to rip off other women. Shit they might even-gasp-raise their own kids and make that a business model out of that for you plebs to ape. But the big guns are the few savvy dames making a living telling other less genetically and economically fortunate broads how to can be the best version of themselves during an overpriced conference on Thriving While Willfully Deluded by Sandra.
Higher Power drivel. Lots of options here. Pretend there is more to life than life. Be happy for what you have ‘cause you ain’t getting no more—look around. Pray so hard that you crowd out actual thought, alternatively whirl like a dervish until you hit your head and pass out. Same thing, but more physical. Accept that this was the plan and just wait to die. Lower your expectations- like really lower them to the point that you should be shocked to breathe back in after to breathe out. And then of course, just look at how it’s worse for them over there in that country without imported cheese, power yoga, and foot masques. Yikes, don’t you feel better now you whiny B? Ohm.
Wine and Casual Gaming. Model's own.