I was sitting in an outdoor cafe in the center of town, sipping an iced coffee and enjoying the breeze which was cool and dry. The change of air from the stifling temperatures of the last few weeks was refreshing and energizing, and hinted that autumn was drawing closer.

It was a lovely evening for people-watching. Families stopped at the ice cream shoppe, young faces sported smiles and milky-white moustaches dotted with colored sprinkles as they skipped by, leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail from the cone melting in their hands. Older couples strolled along, holding hands as they did when they were young and first in love, now symbolic of the union of their lives. As I viewed strangers in this casual way, I realized something very important about people. The majority of people are not attractive in the way Hollywood and TV make us think we must be to be accepted. But the majority of people were comfortable in their skin.

I started to think of my family and friends, people I know and love well. I thought of all the reasons they matter to me and what I like best about them and their appearance was not in the top ten for any of them. Then I thought, if I saw them as strangers walking down the street, my assessment of them would be based solely on appearance, and I pondered how that assessment might differ greatly from the reality of the person. Here I was, coolly sizing up people based on their hairstyle and their clothing, while knowing nothing of them, not knowing what made someone out there love them.

I was very glad to have come to the conclusion that the most important thing we can wear is our confidence. It’s a gift to walk down the street and say “Here I am, accept me as I am, it’s all good”. I was very glad to decide that judging a book by its cover could be very misleading.

Because despite my casual air of cool confidence as I surveyed each stranger and summed them up, it is very possible they walked away with an odd impression of me, for I realized I had been sitting there the whole time wearing two different shoes, one white and one black. Immediately any superior thoughts I had of my image disintegrated into laughter. It’s something my friends would expect of me, and it was a good feeling to know that there are people who know me that well.

The reality is that most of us will never achieve the look that TV and films and fashion magazines tell us is the ideal. The point of Fifty-Something Women is not to tell us how to become something we are not, but how to be all that we are, how to be our best and achieve success and happiness in acknowledging that we have unique gifts that enrich the lives of those around us.

Here’s looking at you, kid!

Keeping fit and maintaining a healthy body can be a challenge for today’s busy woman. But as we approach our fifties, women need to pay special attention to fitness to avoid post-menopausal concerns and common ailments of middle age, such as osteoporosis, diabetes, arthritis, depression and anxiety.

Strength training isn’t just for the young. Resistance training benefits people at any age but holds many health benefits for women in their fifties. Changing the muscle-to-fat ratio by increasing lean muscle mass not only tones and shapes the body but burns more calories. Strength training also builds bone mass and increases bone density, even in postmenopausal women whether or not they use hormone therapy. It will increase your energy levels as well, giving you the endurance you need to keep up your busy lifestyle.

Starting a strength training program doesn’t necessarily mean running out to buy a weight bench or joining an expensive gym. You can start with resistance provided by rubber exercise bands, weight machines, hand and ankle weights and even the weight of your own body. Supervision and instruction is recommended but you don’t need to join an expensive gym, your local YMCA may have facilities for strength training.

I love reading carefully crafted words which touch me deep where I live? I recently had that joy from an unlikely source:  An email.  But being that the email, and the poem, came from “The Borzoi Reader,” Random House’s online literature publication, I guess it is somewhat understandable.  The poem is about being a woman and coming to middle age.

The name of the poem is “Boat,” and it is by Deborah Digges. I, of course, had to research her a bit and I have all of her books on my wishlist! This is the kind of poet that makes you want to go back to college and pick up another degree – this time in literature.

The poem “Boat,” explores the feelings of facing middle-age with young mothers surrounding, in lines such as,

“Once they looked back to show me myself at fifty, frightening to them, not yet recognizable…”

The last line was, to me, absolutely breaktaking and she observed her 50+ years by considering her, “brilliant, trivial unmooring.”

“Boats” A Poem by Deborah Digges

About Deborah Digges

More Poems from Deborah Digges

Some words are very relative in their meaning.  Take the word old.  Do you think you are old?  I don’t.  But I think Social Security now classes me in the “older Americans” group.   When referring to age, it seems that the older you get, the older “old” becomes. When I was 16 I though 40 or so, was fairly old. When I hit 30, I thought 55 or so was old. Now that I am 50, I don’t think old happens until at least 80… maybe 90. I should ask someone who is 85 what they think “old” is.

I am not the first one to speculate on this question. I found a great page on the Internet about it. Ohio State has a page that explains different changes that occur at the different decades in our lives and tries to answer the question…

When Does Someone Attain Old Age?