I Am Not Practicing Decay

I have been thinking about how often women are trained to rehearse aging.

Rehearsing aging

Every year, we announce that we are older. We joke about falling apart. We expect certain pains, changes, and limitations because of the number attached to us. Birthday rituals can start to feel less like a celebration of our life and more like a reminder to the body that another piece of it is supposedly gone.

A birthday does not suddenly age my cells overnight. A number does not control my biology. But the way I speak about myself does matter.