Video of the Week: A Remarkable Conversation about Aging

We talk a lot about the impact that society’s devaluing of age has on us as older people, but how does it affect young women in their 20s and 30s? If you haven’t been spending time with Gen Y lately, you might be surprised – not just by how significantly the subject of aging factors into the way the women in this video think about themselves, but also by how thoughtfully they – as well as the video’s older participants – approach the topic.

“I don’t have a fear of aging. But there is this fear of becoming invisible,” one young women says, “and I think these are becoming one and the same in our society. That terrifies me.”

The video is one of several in a series of conversations created by the site SoulPancake in partnership with Darling Magazine.

If you start tiring of hearing a bunch of smart and beautiful young white women discuss society’s “f***ed up” attitude to age, hang in there; a couple of older women speak about the plus sides of reaching an age where you no longer have to fear getting older – “I think I like being who I am,” one silver-haired woman says, “and being who I am right now has some wrinkles attached” – and the video ends with a powerful poem read by young African American poet Natalie Patterson, who leads us through a series of profiles of women of various ages with whom she has discussed present and future, and how to grab the moment you are in, “because it’s the only one you’ve got.”

“Mary Sue is 60. I’ve never met her but I know she’s stunning. Told me that most of her life is behind her, is supposed to have all the answers by now but is just figuring out the questions, says she doesn’t want to waste a moment, her body hurts some days and boobs – boobs really do head south…. She says sixty is great and awful and wonderful and big.”

What would you tell these young women about getting older? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.