tough for me..because I really love magazines.
I keep getting the conflicting reports about how I am supposed to be really happy to be where I am age-wise and yet I also see how I am supposed to be smooth as a 20 year old. How can I be both things? Well, I guess I could take out a couple loans to make a plastic surgeon a little wealthier. OR..here is a novel idea, why don’t I go ahead and….
NOT!
RuthG wishes you the merriest of Christmas revelries!
& be free.
I stopped reading women’s magazines years ago for that very reason—both articles & ads are full of contradictions.
But if you like to read, there are other kinds of magazines: Atlantic Monthly, Orion, The Nation, Harper’s. They focus on giving you interesting things to think about.
My favorite has always been The New Yorker
ellie is organizing and exploring
and The New Yorker.
The list is long … pithy, ageless magazines.
RuthG wishes you the merriest of Christmas revelries!
& I’ve only seen it a couple of times, but it’s been highly recommended. And somehow I’m getting e-mailings from Orion Online these days. It’s an environmental magazine, not just calls to activism but thoughtful essays. Bill McKibben, a writer I like, is a columnist; here’s a link to a sad-but-hilarious short piece he wrote recently on excessive consumerism.
Someday I hope to publish a poem there!
ellie is organizing and exploring
Yes, these are great magazines. Along with a few others …
With the anti-aging this and anti-aging that.
Then I was in the drugstore and I stumbled into an aisle of “skin lighteners” for people of color. It makes me so mad, and sad. Why can’t we all see how beautiful and unique we already are, and stop trying to look like Britney Spears despite our age, race, etc?
(One Britney Spears on this planet is enough for me!)
PattyTrish Is living in a new state and enjoying it a lot!
Among the many emotions (mostly negative) Michael Jackson inspires in me, the fact that he disliked his natural features so much he went to such lengths to change them, has always stirred up a sense of sadness and grief. I think it sad that any aspect or subdivision of modern culture (be it white, black, thin, young…) can have such an impact on others to cause the other group or person to dislike their own selves…sigh.
Iron Man is one busy hombre
Age is merely a state of mind. My Grandmother’s 89, and everyone thinks she’s in her mid to late 60’s. They say “you don’t act or look old” She replies, “Iguess I didn’t know how I was supposed to look or act”
My Dad’s somewhere in his mid 60’s, but can still out work and out muscle a guy in his 20’s. He says he’s too busy to fall for the lie of being too old.
The same goes for me. I’m just too busy to think about that age thing. Nothing’s changed to make me believe in it. I still get accused of being in my late 20’s sometimes, because I refuse to to act and feel the way the popular media tells me I should.
Let’s hear it for the Dunadain!
PattyTrish Is living in a new state and enjoying it a lot!
But it is so cute!
I guess I challenged ageism by returning to college in my late forties – though the field I am entering into (Clinical Psychology) is one that age, experience, and wisdom can be of value to the clients! I was, however, shocked when a 19 year old client said (after we had met for therapy for a few weeks) that it was so nice to be able to speak to an “older woman”!! Who, me? : )
I am learning that aging gives me more to offer…for which I am glad and actually grateful. I hope that by keeping my eye on what I can give to others, I won’t notice “what is deteriorating” as I age.
I hope to finish my degree before I hit 54 (three years from now). Feel free to cheer me on. It is tiring and a lot of work.
Keep challenging those people and thoughts that seek to take “living” away from our lives.
Pat
as soon as the cheer goblin gives up some cheers!
I think all therapists should be old enough to have had plenty of problems of their own! (seriously!)
The older woman thing cracked me up!
PattyTrish Is living in a new state and enjoying it a lot!
One night in class one young (read: 22 year old) classmate declared that he “didn’t think therapists should encourage anyone to talk about their pasts…that the solution is in the present” (ie., challenge current faulty thinking). I responded….”..come back and tell me that (with that assuredness) when you actually have HAD a past….”
To be honest, I am sure he’s had a past already, important to himself, but I think I was responding more to his attitude at 22 of knowing something so completely and his lack of humility and openness to learn….
I haven’t figured the goblin thing out yet. Are there instructions somewhere on how to get around on this web site?
Cheers to you!
pat
the cheer goblin takes away cheers right when you want them to give! (It just seems that way!)
Well your little 22 year old is probably in the Rational Emotive Therapy camp. I tend to agree with the little twerp (ha-ha) that analysis is wierd. I mean, looking backward can make one feel sorry and become the victim and all. I’m quite sure that is what the youngster was getting at. But therapy is such an interesting subject..especially about it’s value. I love what you said to him!
PattyTrish Is living in a new state and enjoying it a lot!
I have had some clients who dwell on the past like a suffering badge of honor, but most seem to be burying things and not addressing them and moving on. The way I try to envision working with them, those who have particularly abusive, painful experiences, is that it IS a part of their life story, but we work so it is not the whole book of their life – just facing it honestly so it becomes a part of a chapter, let’s say, in relation to what can enjoyed and will be possible in the present and future. I haven’t done and am not trained in analysis per se (real analysis) so I hope what I do is less weird (more conversational, supportive, perspective getting…) but I do find there are links to one’s past best discovered, understood, accepted and challenged.
I have had opportunity to remind some clients that “just because something’s buried, doesn’t mean it is dead!”
But, as you say, just remaining in perpetual sorrow and victimization isn’t healthy, and is, with my metaphor, making a book out of what is rightly chapter or part of a chapter. And unfortunately, when that happens it is a very sad, and can feel hopeless, book. So, there is some value to both looking back, and moving on in a healthy way. I think anyway. Sorry for the lengthy response.
Oh, yes, he was from the REBT or CBT camp.
:)
Pat
That is QUITE a jump! WHY in the world do you think of yourself as being so much older than you really are?
is an “old soul” that is why she likes the victorian period and so forth. I knew a woman in her twenties who loved to garden..she was an old soul too.
I just feel like I’ve been around FOREVER!
Written by: Bruce Johnston
I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song
I put the words and the melodies together
I am music and I write the songs
I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs
My home lies deep within you
And I’ve got my own place in your soul
Now, when I look out through your eyes
I’m young again, even though I’m very old
Oh my music makes you dance
And gives you spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock ‘n’ roll so you can move
Music fills your heart
Well, that’s a real fine place to start
It’s from me it’s for you
It’s from you, it’s for me
It’s a worldwide symphony
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