What does getting old look like? It’s a lot different these days. We may have silver hair, but we can all be Golden Girls.
Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia – the Golden Girls – 4 women growing old together and shattering all of our preconceptions about age and women. These Golden Girls were the first look many of us had at the lives of women as they aged. They didn’t sit around and crochet doilies – they continued to work and were active in their communities. They didn’t spend nights alone in their rocking chairs – they continued to be social, they continued to date – and yes, they even continued to have sex.
Here was a myth-shattering view of senior citizens, of older women. These four women found ways to get old but continue to act young. They were healthy, they were hopeful, and they were a heck of a lot of fun! Dorothy, larger than life, showed us it was okay to be strong, intelligent and independent, while still living with her 80-year-old mother. Sophia, her mother, was a wise-cracking, spitfire of a senior who found humor in everything and finally had stopped caring what other people thought. Rose, the maiden, remained the innocent and naïve farm girl, who really had her own sense of what was important in life and love and family. And Blanche – how we loved Blanche as she made us feel good about sex. Blanche was the vamp, the femme fatale, the archetype of the seductress – on the outside. And vulnerable like most of us on the inside.
We can take a cue from these four women. We don’t have to spend the “twilight years” of life alone. We have options. We can take up golf and live with other active seniors in a community in Arizona or Florida. We can run off and be an expatriate in a beautiful colonial town in Mexico. We can join forces and live together in co-housing communities like the Golden Girl Homes – http://www.goldengirlhomes.us/Home.asp – based on the concept of intentional communities and communes of our youth. Like Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia – when we get old we can all live together and sit around the kitchen table at night and eat cheesecake and ice cream every night – yippee!!
For advice on how to look young as you get older, see previous post – F is for Fabulous Forties, Fantastic Fifties and still going strong at Sixty.
