I like being a mature woman

In one of the approximately one hundred thousand WhatsApp groups of friends I belong to (and which have so many women, especially those in their later years), we spent quite a while discussing an Instagram post announcing that youth is no longer an age, but an energy. The headline is brilliant, and at first glance, I bought it wholeheartedly. I myself am fifty-six years old and I feel energetically young. And I think about it every Monday, because I like to start the week with a little madness: going to the gym for the seven o'clock weightlifting class. I've always been told I have a lot of energy, and as you can see, it hasn't diminished with age. My hands hurt more (osteoarthritis), I complain from time to time about my hip (that's the trochanteric bursitis trying to come back), I need a mouthguard to avoid straining my jaw at night, I take five hundred supplements to prevent it... However, I feel full of life. And I told myself that perhaps the post was right, and I do belong to what they now call the new young, he midlife expanding.

But then I read one of the comments on the post that questioned why we have to define "youth" in everything related to feeling alive beyond thirty, and advocated for redefining the concepts of old age and maturity. The comment made me think, and I realized that I've never done as much exercise as I do now. Nor have I ever had so many ideas. Nor the urge to create and undo. Or the desire to do nothing, from the safety and composure of "here I stand." And I decided that the man who wrote the comment was right. He didn't write it thinking about women, but I did. And I declared that it's time to stop disguising ourselves with the word "youth" to hide the fact that we are mature women who will one day be old, if the Goddesses of Holy Longevity allow it. And we are women with the overflowing energy of maturity. Aware of who we are and that we have our rights.

The right not to be pigeonholed as passive, for example. The stereotype they've sold us of women in retreat, lacking any desire for the limelight, enjoying the placidity of the final stage of life—whoever wants to can just throw that out the window. Right now, I don't know a single one of those women. All the mature women around me are involved in a thousand different things (besides having to take care of children, parents, grandchildren...). And between them all, they could run a thousand massive hydroelectric power plants.

I like being a mature woman. I suppose that has something to do with the fact that I was a big fan of the series. The Golden GirlsAs much as the title might suggest a focus on old age, three of the main characters were indeed women in their fifties. Now, the series created by Susan Harris feels dated, but these wonderful, outspoken, irreverent, and independent women paved the way for us and showed us that maturity is an energetic stage of life. And brilliant, as brilliant as gold.