A Little MS with a Little MSW

My stereotypical image of a grandma includes short gray hair, glasses, a whole lot of good cooking, and a little extra pudge around the middle. I wonder, all of you Gen Z’ers and beyond, what’s yours?

Have the younger generations even heard the phrase ‘aging gracefully?’ As I myself grow older and learn to navigate the MS-like atrocities that have inhabited my body, I find myself wondering if anyone does, in fact, age gracefully. To me, there is something graceful about the softness of an older person’s pudge; the simplicity of an offering of fresh-baked cookies; the authenticity of a body marked by wrinkles…

Society has developed an obsession with fitness and nutrition…and superficiality. Fit and healthy is fantastic… the “healthy” dose of artificiality we are pouring on our outer layers, not so much. We’ve turned the phrase ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’” into Keeping Up with the Toxins.” It’s the era of Botox Grannies, indeed.

I find the loss of natural aging – especially among women – sad. Plastic surgeons molding our plastic exteriors has become a billion dollar industry. And while there is undeniable beauty in some of these women who spend thousands of dollars on age-defying procedures, there is also an undeniable disregard of the beauty that lies in the natural.

To the woman with a face full of wrinkles, skin pock marked by age spots, and hair streaked with the shade of gray that only comes from many miles walked on this Earth, your beauty is not only undeniable, but a welcome softness in this hard, plastic world.