Letting go
The ropes that keep us
Tied to life-long habitudes
Live as though
you’re free and fearless
To face each day’s vicissitudes.

Written for Age Esteem by Alexandra Taylor after the chapter “Letting Go”
in AgeEsteem: Growing A Positive Attitude Toward Aging
by Bonnie Lou Fatio

Maggie Dull, 67 ½, Pennsylvania, USA

Age Esteem is to grow old gracefully.  To be thankful for what I have, what I still have left of my faculties and body at my age.

Maggie’s Tips:  I try to exercise. I try to keep my hair looking well and my makeup.  I wear appropriate clothing for my age.  What is appropriate clothing?  I cover up my flaws such as flabby arms, dimply legs, dimpled butt so I have a formal tan up to my knees, up to my elbows and down to my chest.  I try to keep smiling.  I try to smile at people so they feel good about themselves too.  Sometimes they need a smile or recognition that they’re alive.  So I do that and it also makes me feel good.  They smile back.

Keep your mind alert.  Watch the news.  Know what’s happening in the world.  Do some puzzles. Try to stay interested in your fellow man.  Go to church.  Become a saved person.  I think you’re happier when you’re saved.  Happier than when you aren’t.  Believing in Jesus Christ.  That’s sage.

Death is a normal part of life.  We’re all going to do it and I’m ready.  It’s not something that I fear.  I’ve seen too many people who are dying and it’s easier than I thought.  My greatest fear is probably a terrorist coming over here and slitting my throat.

Silvia Glatthard, 80, Swiss

Age Esteem is how you should try to manage your age.  How to deal with your age.  You should take aging as a normal thing.  It is natural to become old and older.  You should not do anything to go against that.  Accept it and just be happy and be thankful all the time.  I try to be like that and I am.

Silvia’s Tips:  Attitude.  This is my nature.  My mother had the same spirit. Just go along and make the most out of every day each day and be happy.  I have good friends.  Where I live everybody knows me.  When I go around everyone call outs to me.  The other side is that everybody knows everything about everyone else, but I don’t mind that.

Regard less yearly aging
Regard more, and then esteem
The Joys of Life, and be engaging
in Fulfilling your own dreams.

Written for Age Esteem by Alexandra Taylor

Alex Stauffer, 67, Swiss

When I hear the term Age Esteem I think in our old age that we should be happier with what we have, including health and wrinkles, and not think “Oh I’m getting old now.” or “It’s too late.”

Alex’s tips:  I would say you have to love yourself and in order to love yourself you have to be in good health, so you need to do something about it.  I know I drink a little bit too much, but I eat healthy, I move a lot, I do my exercises, I try to help other people.  But it’s not always easy.

I’m a little short tempered with people who have health problems because they do nothing about it.  They do nothing to prevent the problems even when they have time to exercise and money to buy good food.  I know it is sometimes expensive to eat good fruit and vegetables instead of junk food, but if you can do that and don’t do it, I have no patience.

UP with growing older
Let your spirit soar,
Every day you’ll be much bolder
And wiser than before.

Written for Age Esteem by Alexandra Taylor

Anandi Smith, 23, British & Nepalese

Age Esteem is definitely a positive message on how you deal with getting older.  It’s for all different ages.  When I hear the word it’s not just based on older people or younger people.  It’s for all ages.  You don’t lose your esteem simply because you get older, provided you have esteem.

Anandi’s Tips: I think mainly is to have good role models in people around you.  Obviously the media tells us that you’ve got to be young; old is bad.  I study the media all the time and they put this picture in your head of what you have to be.  No one really celebrates being older.  There also seems to be a gap.  It’s  good to be 25 and then you’re respected after you’re 40 but that gap in between is not celebrated.  You have all these expectations:  You have to have a boy friend, to get married, to have kids and a career.  There seems to be no celebration of this in between age, especially as a woman.  For example, if men haven’t gotten married in that time, their main focus is on their career.   If you’re a woman and have a good career at 25 you still aren’t fulfilled until you’ve ticked all the other boxes.  But then once you’re 40 you are old enough to be respected because of your age.

I look at my mom who just turned 50 this year and I can see that her peak in career is actually now.   Mine is just beginning and is just as exciting as hers, but I can see that the older she’s getting the more clever and intelligent she’s getting.  She’s wired.  Her career is moving.  I respect my grandma a lot.  She is on fire.  She knows everything that’s going on in the world.  She was one of the first teachers in the northeast region (England) that taught computers and she was very career ridden,  which in those days for a woman was quite strange.

I’ve been surrounded by older women that made me think positively about getting older.  I do have girl friends who are younger than me and I learn from them as well.  Their generation is different from mine.  They’re quicker than I am.  You can bounce off ideas and experiences with other people who have a whole different knowledge.  But role models for me are generally older than me.  There are lots of women who I want to be like when I reach their age.  I want to have their attitude and their energy.

Monday, Sunday, Friday, Saturday
Every day an even better day.
Shuffle through the leaves of Time,
Celebrate your age, and climb
Each moment to it’s highest measure
Thankful for the slightest pleasure.

Sunday, Monday, Friday, Saturday
Every day an even better day.
Learn and grow through gathering years
Esteem your age and calm your fears
Read your heart and speak your spirit,
Truth is the world as how you see it.

written for Age Esteem by Alexandra Taylor

Diane Smith, 53

What is Age Esteem?  When I first saw Bonnie Fatio,s book AgeEsteem: Growing A Positive Attitude Toward Aging I thought it was about aging.  I thought it’s going to tell me how to age gracefully and this it great!

What I worry most about aging is aches and pains.  I’ve never been sick a day in my life, but when I turned 50 I started feeling some aches and pains and that’s one of my concerns.  And you know I look in the mirror and I see wrinkles and I start buying eye creams and stuff.  I have beauty products to prevent aging.  The reason is that it’s probably been on my mind since I was 25.  I’m a believer in prevention.
Diane’s tips:  I stay active.  I have friends.  I love working in my garden.  I feel good working in the garden.  I’m strong enough to do things and have the energy.  I feel  good.   I have a cup of coffee every morning.  I read my Bible every day.  It gives me inspiration and I look at my life and I look at where I’ve been and where I am now and I’m thankful.  I thank God.  If God doesn’t bless me with anything else, I’m blessed.  Yes, I’m totally blessed.  I have a lot of great friends.  I have a wonderful husband whose a good friend.  That makes it easy.  I have a daughter.  I have grandchildren.  I carry their picture around and when I look at them I think what a wonderful blessing.  I’m just thankful for what I have and I don’t worry about what I don’t have.

Suzanne Durham, 64, Alabama, U.S.A.

I love the positive spin that was put on Age Esteem, because now that I’ve become one of those older women I realize some of the bias and negative words that are out there like the Senior Citizen’s Club and those kinds of things.  So I love Age Esteem.  I immediately went to my own age; I went personal first.  I went to my own age of being 64, soon to be 65, and I thought that was a very positive way to frame my own issues around age.

My own concerns?  Personally I’ve noticed over the last couple years a loss of energy.  I get tired easier.  Although I still consider myself energetic and I do have some vitality, I have noticed a little bit of decline in energy and my job doesn’t allow that.  So I get tired and a little weary.  I’m also incredibly blessed to have extremely good health.  I’ve never had any diseases.  I had gastric bypass six years ago and I’ve lost 100 pounds.  I did that 6 years ago to get my energy back because I noticed that my weight was just really sapping my energy.  I was 245 pounds and lost to 145 and am now about 160.

Now I have some extra skin and sometimes ask myself, “Shall I have a tummy tuck or chin tuck?”  I always say that you can’t tell how old black women are because they have that great oil in their skin; and you can’t tell how old a fat woman is because of all the cellulite.  There is an advantage to cellulite in some places.

Suzanne’s tips:  Take care of yourself.  Exercise.  Do all the things we say to do to remain physically healthy.  I think you need to be mentally healthy as well.  You need to find that thing that brings you happiness and joy and that brings you spiritual energy and spiritual joy.  It goes back to finding the passion in your life that gives you spiritual energy.  It is important to stay active both physically and mentally.  I’m a former PE (physical education)  teacher so I’ve taught activity and I beat myself up mentally fairly often because I’m not as physically active as I know I should be.  I don’t always get that mile walk in every day that I try to.

Know your body.  Know the signs and symptoms and pay attention.  Pay attention to your mental well being as well as your spiritual health and your physical health.  Pay attention to your body.

Suzanne Durham is CEO of YWCA of Central Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama