01/01/2025
AFTER FIFTY
After fifty, you can no longer handle restrictions...
You can’t stand a tight bra, forced dinners with your sister-in-law who inspects the dust in every corner, high heels on rocky paths, or circumstantial smiles...
At fifty, you no longer want to prove yourself. You are who you are, the things you’ve done, and the things you still want to do. If it’s fine with others, great. If not, it is what it is...
After fifty, it doesn’t matter if you have children or not; you’ll still be a mother, your mother, your father, a lonely aunt, your dog, or a bald cat you rescued from the street...
And if none of those are there, you’ll be your own mother because, over the years, you’ll have learned to care for a body you’ve finally come to love—one that grows more imperfect, but only in the eyes of others...
Who cares if half your wardrobe is the wrong size...
What matters is that your back doesn’t creak too much when you stand up, that you don’t feel lumps when touching your breasts, and that menstruation finally becomes someone else’s problem...
After fifty, you want freedom—free to say no, free to stay in pyjamas all Sunday, free to feel beautiful for yourself and not for others...
Free to walk alone; those who love you will walk with you, those who care about appearances...
You are free to sing loudly in your car, even if people stare at you at traffic lights. You’ll no longer have school records to check or mum group chats to endure...
You’ll have dreams like when you were twenty, and you’ll ask God every day for time to achieve more...
You’ll have said goodbye to the men you loved and to the insecurities that once made you tremble...
And now, just now, after devouring half of your life in big, hurried bites, you’ll discover the desire to slowly savour all the sweetness and salt of the days ahead...
~Jr Arenivas
image | Emma Thompson by Veronique Vial.
