The Art of Aging Out Loud
Aging is the most natural and certain trajectory we have—if we are fortunate enough to be given the chance. From the moment we are born, we are already in a lifelong process of aging. Yet we often treat aging as something that begins only when our faces start to map our narratives, or when our bodies invite us to slow down.
But what if aging isn’t a decline that begins at midlife, but rather the lifelong art of becoming? What if we blessed those voices, and saw our wrinkles, blemishes, and scars as reminders that life has been lived?
I’ve long understood that I am not here for a conventional life. My perspectives have often felt countercultural to the stories we’re told (and sold) about what it means to be valuable, desirable, or worthy. Some call me an “old soul.” My body, on the other hand, carries the story of a “worn body.” For many, that phrase sounds heavy or negative. For me, it has become a resonant pulse: a rhythm of life-force reminding me that each day is a gift.
My compass of becoming was forged early. Fourteen years ago, as a young graduate student, my partner and I suddenly became experts in the hospital systems of Seattle. Between us, we carried three cancer diagnoses as young adults within just a few years. That season still echoes—through ongoing preventative care, rearranged organs, and visible and hidden scars. But more than anything, it impressed on me a truth that has never left: every ache, every loss, every scar is a reminder that aging is a privilege. A hard-won, beautiful privilege.
Make no mistake, aging is not for the faint of heart. Without intention and meaning-making, it’s all too easy to absorb the destructive cultural scripts that tell us “don’t age” and “stay young forever.” But for whom? At what cost? If we don’t frame the story of our own aging, the story will be written for us by an industry that sells youth, and erases the wisdom of the elders. And this is detrimental to all.
My years in hospice deepened this knowing. Long before my body caught up with my soul, I walked with elders, including my grandparents, through the thresholds of life and death. I have witnessed both the gift of long years and the ache of years cut short. Each encounter pressed into me this reverence: every stage of life is sacred. As those in hospice often say, we are all just walking one another home. That truth has become an anchor for me.
To reframe aging as the lifelong art of becoming is to embrace resilience, loss, and beauty at every stage of life. We are always in the process of becoming, and in that awareness, we are invited into a soulful perspective on mindful aging, celebrating meaning-making, resilience, and the art of living fully. Wrinkles, scars, and stories are not marks of decline but of wisdom and narrative. Aging asks us to join the conversation with intention, reverence, and courage.
To live the lifespan fully, you must be brave.
To embrace aging as art, you must arrive with intention.
Otherwise, the river of false beliefs about youth and worth can carry us into isolation, costing us the very thing we are here to inhabit—this one wild and precious life, here and now.
It is from this place that I invite you to join us on Monday, September 8th for our open house discussion, The Art of Aging Out Loud: Naming What’s Been Lost, Celebrating What’s Becoming.
