hotflash inc #7: Am I too old?
#rebranding menopause... because this is going somewhere good
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pep talk
Am I too old?
The big news this week here in Abu Dhabi, where I am based, was the launch of the UAE’s first-ever interplanetary mission. I got a kick out of how the perky business and investing newsletter The Morning Brew got into it: “The United Arab Emirates is about to turn 50 – but instead of booking a weeklong golfing trip, it launched its first Mars orbiter on a Japanese rocket Monday morning.”
The idea that the UAE could just be chilling instead of leading the space race was followed up when I spotted this on Twitter, from Behind the Woman Midlife Health & Wellbeing: “I must have seen at least 4 tweets this week, ‘am I too old to do this’, ‘am I too old to wear that.’ Who imposes these rules so we feel we have to ask for permission? Forget society’s expectations, live the life you want to, not the life you ought to. No rules”.
When I was around 30 I was fond of making random, age-related pronouncements that went something like this: “I’m growing my hair out one last time/no one wants to see me wear shorts/soon I’ll be too old to date anyone”. I look back and shudder. I said and did and worried about all those things and then I got older and realized how young and dumb I had been.
Now that I’m 50, I finally get that there is no point in wondering if I’m too old for anything because a) I'm just getting older and b) all that age has made me realize that I’m the only one who needs to be okay with what I do. And while I sometimes still say yes when the answer probably should have been no (French braids, for example), that’s the only way to learn and grow. And have some fun.
Last summer I ambled into H&M to buy a suit on sale and at the last minute, threw in a pair of cut-off jean shorts. I met the male sales associate’s arched brow with a stare that said: “That’s right.” I wore those shorts on a coffee date recently and they were all the guy could text me about later.
Obviously this is much harder for the big life stuff: starting a new career, leaving a marriage, moving countries. But my point is, can we stop asking for permission to live how our hearts are telling us to, even if it's just in our heads? Can we just shut down that echo we’ve internalized from society about what we should be doing at our age right when it starts up? There is no Board of Directors of the Way Things Should Be (I checked). And we really aren’t getting any younger. So let's do the damn thing. No permission required.
Vanity Fair took the long-overdue move of hiring its first-ever Black photographer, Dario Calmese, to shoot Viola Davis for the August cover. The stunning image is based on The Scourged Back, an unforgettable photograph of a man who escaped slavery dated 1863.
Davis wore her MaxMara dress backwards to capture the essence, and brought her whole self to the interview. With an Oscar, Emmy and two Tony awards, Davis is just a Grammy short of coveted EGOT status. The woman is a force: just witness her calling out Hollywood for paying black actresses far less than their white counterparts (she loves Meryl Streep, just don't call her 'the black Meryl Streep') and explaining menopause to late night American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. And the star, who turns 55 in August, is as busy as ever: up next starring as a legendary blues singer in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix and portraying Michelle Obama in Showtime’s upcoming series First Ladies, produced by the company she runs with her husband. In this interview, Davis talks about growing up poor, navigating a white-washed school curriculum, taking years to find traction in Hollywood, her experience with the kind systemic racism that had America taking to the streets en masse for Black Lives Matter protests and how her sisters and mom helped her find her worth.
“The dark-skinned Black woman’s voice is so steeped in slavery and our history,” says Davis. “If we did speak up, it would cost us our lives. Somewhere in my cellular memory was still that feeling – that I do not have the right to speak up about how I’m being treated, that somehow I deserve it. I did not find my worth on my own.”
Here comes the science...
Poor sugar. Research from the Joslin Diabetes Center in the US, published in the journal Nature Metabolism, indicated that some of the benefits of aerobic exercise – both cardiovascular and skeletal-muscular – were diminished when there were higher-than-normal blood sugar levels present in mice, a condition known as hyperglycemia. The scientists believe the blood sugar interferes with the body’s ability to remodel muscle, which makes exercise easier over time.
Easy peasy. A new study out of the University of Milan found that 12 weeks of stretching can improve heart health. Researchers assessed the impact of passive stretching exercises, done five times a week for 12 weeks. They found that arteries in both the lower leg and upper arm not only had decreased stiffness, but better blood flow and dilation. Vascular function and stiffness are important markers of cardiovascular health. Vascular function, arterial stiffness and vascular remodelling are important markers of overall cardiovascular health.
No more Urispas. According to work presented at this month’s virtual European Association of Urology Virtual Congress, doctors at the University of Texas at Dallas in the US have found that women who take menopausal hormone therapy (MHT, also known as HRT) have more beneficial bacteria in their urine. The higher prevalence of Lactobacillus-type bacteria may work to discourage urinary infections, which are more of a concern as women get older.