The swell folks at That'sFit alerted me to this story about Madonna turning 50.
Turns out, Madonna held a Fiftieth Birthday party at which no one was allowed to mention the fact she was 50 years old. (Confidential to Madonna: better idea? Just don't have a freakin' Fiftieth Birthday party. Are you really still in dire need of attention and presents at this point in your life?? )
Oddly enough, none of us here at Cranky Fitness were invited to the celebration, so we don't know if she was successful in squelching any of that nasty Fifty-Year-Old talk. But my guess? She probably pretty much gets what she wants.
Yeah, I swiped a photo just this once.Sorry! Please don't sue me.
Now when I first heard this, I thought: well, sounds kinda vain and immature. Aging is a tiresome, depressing, yet natural and inevitable part of life--you can run but you can't hide, no matter how many personal trainers, surgeons, chefs and publicists you employ.
Get over yourself, Material Girl.
But then it turns out this was totally unfair of me, because Madonna's not really Fifty years old at all--she's only turning Thirty Six!
"Using ancient techniques known only to a select few, the high priests of Kabbalah have calculated her spiritual age to be 36, not 50."
So, um Happy Thirty-Sixth Birthday, Madonna!
But goodness, if I'd only known these sort of arrangements were available, I'd never dithered around being agnostic all these years.
Calling Kabbalah**: it's Crabby on the line! Can I have a new age too, please? Let's see, older or younger, which will it be... um, gosh, let's make it younger, 'k?
Oops... maybe not THAT much younger. Teething was a bitch.
(And I'd sooner drink drano milkshakes for breakfast than go through Junior High again, thank you very much.)
The thing is, though, I can totally relate to Madonna's dilemma. As a Boomer myself, just a few years behind the Material Girl, I too feel I shouldn't ever have to grow up, let alone get old.
I workout, I feel (mostly) great, and I want to think that most of my life is still ahead of me. There are still so many places to see, books to write, cupcakes to eat...
And I don't FEEL old, damn it! I feel about thirty. And I like being thirty, despite what the calendar says. Yet unlike Madonna, I can't seem to remain as effectively in denial. When I look in the mirror, I see plenty of evidence that I am indeed advancing in years. Every day there's some new wrinkle, age spot, gray hair, crease, crevice, or floppy bit.
So this would be a great place to write something inspirational about how the surface stuff really doesn't matter much in the scheme of things, and how I really don't give a crap that I'm not actually 30, either chronologically or when I look in the mirror. And gosh I'm SO looking forward to turning 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 myself...
But that would be complete horsesh*t. I'd rather be 90 than dead, but I'm not really looking forward to being either.
(But who knows, according to some folks, aging may some day be optional!)
So how do you folks feel about your chronological age versus your actual age?
**I know no more about Kabbalah than I do about Zen, so feel free to flame away in the comments about my ignorance!
