The Voodoo doll of aging

I want to talk about something that’s just hitting me hard every single day as we come into this new year. And I look back on the last 12 months of my life and the things that have been happening in my life. This past year has been a rough year. And it's one that on New Year's Day, I actually got a message from someone with an “Oh, good riddance 2021” mentality And I got to thinking about that.

Yes, I'm ready for the new year. But I'm ready for a new year every year. I'm ready for a new day, every day, my goals become something that I get to reach 365 days a year. There's no arrival point, there is no destination. It is living your best self every single day. So I don't think of it as leaving this horrible year behind me. It wasn't all horrible.

There were some awesome things that happened in 2021, my daughter Lauren brought a new baby into the world in December. That's pretty freaking amazing. That's our green baby. That's our Korean baby. And our first baby. That's amazing. 2022 or 2021 was not all bad. It wasn't.

There were some amazing things that happened. My mother and I healed our relationship in 2021. And when she passed away, in my arms, it was one of the most painfully beautiful things that I ever experienced in my life. I miss her every day. And I'm thankful that she's not hurting anymore. And I'm thankful that she didn't have to have a massive surgery to reduce to remove her entire large intestine. And what that would have been like for her. There were some good things that happened in 2021.

Yes, from cancer surgeries for me, COVID, having COVID, breaking my arm, having skin cancer, there were some things in 2021 that maybe weren't so great.

But gosh, there were some great things too.

And one of the things that I really landed on at the end of 2021 was my words for 2022.

And they are: simplify and stabilize.

Words that I am borrowing from a Beachbody coach from years and years and years ago, he talked about this on his podcast, simplify and stabilize. Those are my words for this year, simplifying my life and stabilizing it decluttering and never having to declutter again, emotionally, physically, spiritually, always decluttering and never having to do it again because I'm stabilizing my life as well. And in this process, I came across this doll I found this in my mom's closet when we cleaned her house out when she moved in with us almost four years ago now, and my grandmother actually made it it is her handwriting and the doll is titled this: “The Over the Hill” doll.

I turned 56 last week.

I guess that means I'm over the hill, but I'll feel over the hill. I'm certainly not going to dress over the hill. I'm not gonna act over the hill. I'm not going to accept over the hill. I'm not I'm not I'm not accepting this. This is the over the hill doll. It's a voodoo doll I will show you in a moment. stick pins in where symptoms of old age are you may need more pins. So this is the tag I'm going to take the tag off because I want to actually read this to you. And there are pins in here where you stick in the symptoms that you have of old age and over the hill.

We have on the front on this doll: false teeth, bifocals, memory loss, crow's feet, double chin, wrinkles arthritis, indigestion, flabby arms, age spots, bladder problems, pot belly, hernia, stiff joints, gout, corns, the list goes on.

Let's flip the doll over.

"Hearing loss, hair loss, stress, stiff neck, bad back, pains, aches, tired, blood anemia, gas, constipation, hemorrhoids, swollen ankles…errghhh.

That's what's on this doll.

I picked this up and I wanted to toss it immediately. And then I thought no, this just so goes along with my messaging in 1000 million different ways. These are symptoms that we expected to accept into our lives as we get older.

It is funny and yet it's the saddest thing ever. Because this is what we accept as normal in this country that this is what getting older is technically a 56. Man, I've got one foot in the grave. I'm not living that way. Not not, no, there's no chance. I'm going to live that way. I loved watching my mom get up every morning and sit at her makeup table and meticulously put her makeup on and draw her eyebrows on and have her lipstick on and do her hair. Every morning before she came out to breakfast. She was fully dressed and she didn't come out a bit without makeup and her jewelry on.

She loved it. She took care of herself. And it was so fun to watch her do that. She wasn't obsessed with it. But she loved coming out and looking pretty every single day to you know, watch Leave it to Beaver on TV. She was an amazing lady. But when I would bring this up and I talked her about this and I'd say “So Mom, how many of these are you?” and she looked at the dog she got none of them.

That's the attitude we all need to have. I'm not gonna use the word should because I don't. I don't like that we should all over ourselves all the time. It's not healthy. It's not productive. It's not good.

Aging and being told what we NEED to do, and how to act…we don't have to accept them.

Get rid of your voodoo dolls of what aging is supposed to look like. And join me in this revolution.

We're gonna change the world. We're done being invisible ladies.