So…Madonna… am I right?
What do you think? She is a 64 year old woman who, by society’s rules, should be completely invisible by now. So why isn’t she quietly tending to her garden or volunteering at the breast cancer screening clinic. Doesn’t she have a family to keep her busy?
The answer is simple. That simply wouldn’t be Madonna, would it? This is a woman who is the walking, breathing embodiment of her brand. Did anyone really expect her to fade away? She has always been outrageous. Remember her book: Sex? She is extraordinary – and she re-invents herself every few years. Why , though, does this transformation come with so much hate?
Because she is getting up there! Yup – she is over 60, and a woman so, she probably shouldn’t be drawing attention to herself in “that way”. What way, you ask? In an overtly sexual way, of course. If we look back at Madonna’s career, she has always, always done something to her appearance just before launching a world tour. And guess what. She’s going on tour. Here are your options: Go or don’t go. But why judge her for being herself? Nobody is telling Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel to fade away.
It is hard for women to get old. We have traveled through life with internal and external continuous (often negative) loops of comments on how we look. Then suddenly, you are 50, and boom: invisibility. Invisibility is the hardest thing to accept – especially after decades of trying to be physically acceptable.
Many of us panic and try to stay looking the way we looked when we most liked the way we looked. I mean honestly, who wants a thickening waist and thinning hair? We flock to beauty treatments or surgery. We literally try and outrun aging on our Pelotons or in our cross fit classes.
Then suddenly we see things starting to change: Dr. Teresa Tam comes along, GG Mary Simon is appointed, everyone is in love with Catherine O’Hara, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis and we start to think that perhaps everything will be okay. Maybe we will still be seen. Maybe we are just feeling a little sad, feeling a little sorry for ourselves. It’s okay to grieve for one’s youth for a little while – that’s pretty normal. We go on with a little more positivity and then Lisa Laflamme gets fired because she is too old and young men won’t tune in. Ouch. (the fact that young men hardly get their news from traditional news sources hardly seemed relevant to the sage (probably old) men that made that decision)
Oh well…one step forward…
The point is – the lucky ones age. With age comes wisdom, grey hair, wrinkles, experience, time to travel, if you’re lucky, more money, grandchildren, and unfortunately, bad knees, a fall, possibly heart troubles, cognitive decline. As much time and attention you spend on how you look – spend a little time and money on living well, on your own terms for as long as possible.
