Growing older is a privilege — and a chance to take up space

Growing older is a privilege — and a chance to take up space

Yesterday was my 47th birthday. I’ve finally reached the last age my mum would ever admit to being out loud. It made me smile, but it also made me think about the strange social scripts women inherit about ageing.

Visible ageing is often treated as a problem to solve, rather than the entirely predictable consequence of the extraordinary privilege of staying alive.

One of the saddest things I hear, particularly around menopause, is how many women feel they are becoming invisible. Confidence can fade alongside collagen, and many begin to disconnect from their sexual identity because the face looking back at them doesn’t look like they think it should.

Biology matters. So does misogyny.

We have absorbed the idea that a woman’s value is tied to how successfully she disguises the passage of time. Yet partners rarely describe the woman they love in terms of the tautness of her skin. They see her biography as much as her biology: her humour, strength, kindness, resilience and the life she has lived.

A decade working in a hospice, and now working with women living with cancer, has left me acutely aware that growing older is never guaranteed. Every birthday is a privilege denied to many.

Apart from skin elasticity, I think I’m probably at my peak. My voice is far stronger, my confidence deeper, and my work more fulfilling and impactful. My relationships are richer and more meaningful. I have more perspective, resilience and compassion — and far less interest in making myself smaller to keep other people comfortable.

This is really good.

Women need to see other women in their forties, fifties, sixties and beyond saying something we hear far too rarely: this is really good. It’s not that every part is easy, but our lives can keep expanding — even as our faces change.

The stories we have been told about ageing were not written to help women rise. I don’t believe that once youth fades, value does too. Here’s to another year of taking up space.