Meryl Streep on Aging #FeelingFriday
Source: Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
I feel like we’ve come to rely on Meryl Streep for words of wisdom.
When she wins an award (which happens a lot!), she doesn’t merely go on stage and babble about nonsense. She uses her time to say something meaningful. She uses her public persona responsibly to move our culture forward. For that I am respectful and grateful.
And here’s another moment of wisdom that I am embracing and learning from.
Meryl recently commented on aging. She self-admittedly is entering a new era in her life and also has recently gone somewhat public about her new relationship with Martin Short. At 75 years old, she is still going strong with a vibrant career, active social life, and full family life. Good for her. #LifeGoals. But she’s also not trying to still be a kid either.
Here’s what she had to say:
"Aging is not for the weak. One day you wake up and realize that your youth is gone, but along with it, so go insecurity, haste, and the need to please ... You learn to walk more slowly, but with greater certainty. You say goodbye without fear, and you cherish those who stay. Aging means letting go, it means accepting, it means discovering that beauty was never in our skin ... but in the story we carry inside us."
Thank you Meryl. I needed that.
I’ll admit, I’m not totally in love with getting older but I’m ok with it. I’m learning more and more to embrace it. Even to relish in it. I’m learning to take it as yet another stage in my life where yes I am more confident.
I do know what I want out of life. I’m walking through life with my head held a little higher than before. A little slower, as Meryl says, to enjoy it a little more. Or at least I am trying. And yes my definition of beauty, like Meryl’s, has changed as well. Beauty is what we bring to life, which is in fact all that we’ve done up to this point and what we continue to bring. Those around me are beautiful, each and every one of them. All in their own unique ways. As too am I. Age gives us that gift.
This quote from Meryl gives me an extra boost as I face the rest of the year ahead with work, friends, and family and all of the joys and challenges that will come. I’ll take them a little more slowly with age, a little more confidently with age, and I will savior them more with age.
How about you? What’s your experience? JIM