You and I Are Too Old to Rewrite History With a Photograph

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Jan M. Flynn

allows me to make an observation

This week I posted a story about mid-life. In it, I shared the above photo shoot treatment from thirteen years ago when I was 58. With the exception of my MedicAlert bracelet, it gives every impression of someone totally in charge. DAMN GIRL.

That body, those looks. Yeah, right.

I also wrote that I was miserable: horrible eating disorders, all my natural teeth gone, I could go on. I was successful in my work but my relationship was a joke (the photo shoot was for the ex, and he was a no-show).

Jan had seen a previous post of mine, and she pointed out that a more recent photo from that post was considerably more apt. And joyful.

She nailed it, too:

The author stuck to the knees in an elephant pond, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2022

I loved that Jan had noted the transformation from stilted glamour to happy glop.

The top photo is about as dishonest as it gets. Yeah, that’s me. Takes a shitton of work to look like that. Lasts a nanosecond. It is SO tempting to look at that photo and think, man. Do I wish I still looked like that? I had it all, right?

Who am I fooling anyway?

You and I are WAY Too Old to project a false narrative on a photo of a younger self.

We know better.

Glamour shots are just that: they are false advertising. As gorgeous or handsome as they make us look, they are window dressing, bait and switch, false advertising, especially to ourselves.

My element is being up to my knees in elephant mud laughing my ass off, among other things.

Thirteen years ago I had 90-hour workweeks, horrible OCDs from all the stress, no time off, few friends, a non-existent BF and a whole lot of misery.

That’s what I remember about that top photo. Not that brief moment of looking like all that and a bag of chips.

Fast forward, bottom photo, 2022. By this point I’d been doing adventure travel since 2011. Gone are the high-maintenance hair, makeup, designer wardrobe, fake nails.

My face has lines and wrinkles that speak to laughter, adventure, mountain summits, Arctic Ocean paddling. My hands are weathered from horseback rides, climbs, kayaking. I don’t look much like the top photo these days at all.

But I sure am happier.

I stopped wearing makeup, getting my nails done, and my greying hair lives in a braid most of the time. I’d rather spend my time adventuring, being with animals, making new friends, writing…not worried about an eyelash out of place or a broken nail or an ounce of body fat.

I know which life I prefer. The one I’m living now.

In her eighties, my mother used to gaze at old family photos and project stories onto them through the addled lens of age. Her version of my personal history didn’t track with mine. That led to a fair number of arguments.

These days I understand what her brain was doing: protecting her. She needed to edit details like my father’s alcoholism, his verbal abuse, anything that caused her pain. I may reach that point someday. It’s a perfectly reasonable coping mechanism for many.

But for now, as long as my mind is sharp enough to know the difference, I’m not interested in painting a patina over what my life was like.

I’m not willing to anesthetize myself about my past, which might keep me from being sharp-eyed about where I’m headed.

Today’s comparison culture, the need to feed others the impression that our lives are an endless epic highlight reel, is a dangerous sink hole. Not only is such a life not realistic, it’s fundamentally untrue.

We get those brief moments when we may look a certain way, captured forever.

We get those nanoseconds when we hold a pose and look like we have our shit together.

Like this:

I was able to hold this for about three seconds

This is just before I unraveled and hit the mat with a satisfying SPLAT.

You don’t see that part. THAT’S the best part, the funny part. And it took me a shitton of time to get to this point, too, plenty of fails and falls and faceplants.

But if you only see this, you might think HOLY SHIT. Epic.

Nope. The Holy SPLAT was epic. Then I got up and did it again. And again and again, until I had hand surgery and may not ever be able to do it again.

No matter. I’ll find another sport to go splat. You should see me come flying off a BOSU ball.

I’ve read where someone makes this blanket statement that NOBODY EVER POSTS THEIR FAILS.

That person doesn’t speak for me, nor does that person speak for all of us here on Substack willing to air our dirty tighty -whiteys or make fun of our stupid shit.

Nobody speaks for everybody.

I can only speak for myself. Mooning over a photo of my younger self from a patently manipulated photo shoot and projecting qualities, emotions and a false narrative on that time ruins my now.

It’s an even worse thief of my future.

Thanks to

Jan M. Flynn

for the poke in the side. Better’n a poke in the eye, which I’ve done plenty of times myself with a kitchen cabinet. Let’s be real. Let’s laugh. Let’s live.

Let’s play.

The middle finger I exploded with a hammer. No really, I hit it so hard I pretty much blew off the top. We fixed it. Made flipping people off a lot of fun.

Thanks for hanging with me. I hope you got a laugh, a chuckle, and above all permission to just be so authentically and really yourself. Which is perfect, by the way. If this worked for you, please consider

If you know someone who believes other folks’ highlight reels, consider

We all have those nano second moments. We LIVE in all the others. Have a great time inbetween.