“They’re not the same age any more,” a man in a crisp suit said to me once, his eyes dead serious as if he were reading a rulebook.
I blinked, taken aback. “Excuse me, what does that even mean?” I asked, the words catching in a throat that had heard too many polite sighs.
He smiled, as if the answer were as obvious as the rain over the Thames. “You know its not the season for bright dresses, loud laughter, dancing in the kitchen, or belting out the old Beatles tunes like you used to. Youre supposed to be more modest, calmer, properly grownup now.”
I stayed silent, not out of offense but because I was fascinated by how easily people draw invisible fences where none exist. Then I let a small smile slip across my face, turned my gaze inward, and said, steady as a church clock:
“Honestly, Ive never read a single book that tells a woman exactly when she must stop being herself.”
Who decides that a woman at a certain number of candles on her birthday cake can no longer laugh until she cries? Who decrees that a red lipstick or a favorite hymn sung at the top of her lungs is no longer appropriate after a certain age? We dont cease to be us simply because the calendar adds another year.
Yes, Ive got a few decades behind me years stitched together with pain, experience, and moments of pure joy. Ive watched fortunes rise and fall, watched love drift away and new beginnings bloom. And now Im different not older, but calmer, deeper, wiser. Ive learned to cherish silence, to listen to my heart, and to understand that true youth isnt stamped in a passport but lives in the sparkle of the eyes, in the ability to delight in small things, and in the wonder we still feel for the world.
I no longer have to prove my worth to anyone. I dont chase the illusion of looking younger; I simply want to live genuinely. I laugh when something amuses me. I dance when a familiar tune from a Saturday night at the local pub plays. I wear what feels right, not what a rulebook says belongs to my age. Most of all, I allow myself to be alive.
Because life isnt a stage where you act out the part of the appropriate age. Its a journey, each day a gift. Its a shame when people abandon joy simply because someone mutters, Thats not suitable for you now.
It is suitable for me.
It is suitable for me to laugh when my soul sings.
It is suitable for me to slip on a bright dress even though Im not twenty.
It is suitable for me to be exactly who I am right now, without excuses, without fear.
There is no such thing as the wrong age. There is only a moment warm, real, alive. And if you feel a light inside, if your heart still wants to laugh and love, then you are alive.
Now is my time to live. Truly, without limits, without shame, without the endless list of shoulds and mustnts. No one has the right to decide when a woman stops being herself.
I simply exist. And each morning I tell myself, Yes, this is my age. Its the best one yet.
