My grandmother became a grandmother at forty-four—and in that very moment she began to live exactly as the title suggested. No, of course she didn’t wear a floral kerchief or hobble with a cane, and even in very old age she looked neat and dignified. But I remember once we sewed a bright red dress for a doll together. I was thrilled and asked if she would like a dress like that for herself. She laughed and said, “What are you thinking? I’m a grandmother.” And that “I’m a grandmother” colored absolutely everything. With the arrival of her first grandchild, she instantly stepped into the frame drawn by society and by her own ideas and lived there for the rest of her life—just like every woman in her circle.
I often hear people in the 40+ generation say we’ve had everything thrown at us, that living through an era of constant change isn’t easy. And yet it is precisely this generation that shattered all the frames, traditions, and fixed notions of age. Can you even imagine calling a woman who’s just past forty—a grandmother? She’s hardly what you’d call an “older woman”; she’s a beautiful girl. Yes, maybe not entirely young and dewy, but still a girl—because her outlook is oriented toward youth, not the other way around.
In today’s world you can only guess a woman’s age, and sometimes you can barely figure it out from surrounding clues. I often have coffee at a little café; the barista already knows what I like, and we always exchange a few words. She’s small, graceful, pretty. She looks like she only just finished university. Recently I walked in and saw a guy next to her—huge, broad-shouldered, nearly two meters tall. I thought: could that be her boyfriend? She’s Thumbelina next to him. I watch him lean over the counter and kiss her. Looks like that’s exactly what it is. And then comes the next line, in a booming voice: “Mom, can you spot me a couple hundred?” Honestly, if someone had told me she was his daughter, I would’ve been less surprised…
But the best thing is that a modern woman can choose for herself—how she looks, what image and what “age” she’s comfortable wearing. If she wants—braids and tattoos in the bikini area; if she wants—Louboutins and deep-plunge dresses; if she wants—sneakers and ripped jeans; if she wants—lemon-yellow blouses, pencil skirts, and hats for every season. And yes—red dresses, even mini, with a teasing zipper running all the way down the back. And no one will shrug or tap their temple. And even if someone does—she couldn’t care less.
There’s something else, and it’s very important. Remember the old saying, “If youth only knew, if age only could”? It’s gone. The middle generation bleached it out the way you lift a stain from a snow-white tablecloth. Because now we already know—and we can still do. This remarkable generation refuses to moor to either shore: the elderly push us away in fear, the young eye us warily. So this ship keeps drifting under its own power, high on the thrill of its adventures.
And here is the most important discovery, which I understood only recently and am happy to share with you: with age, possibilities aren’t limited. With age, they expand.
We don’t need to “find ourselves”—we’ve already found ourselves, and now we happily hone our craft or try new techniques in whatever brings joy and satisfaction. We don’t need to talk to everyone, letting random people into our lives; our task now is to keep our own—the ones close to us in spirit and heartbeat. We can afford the luxury of pleasant, not merely necessary, conversation. In love and in intimacy we strive for quality, knowing full well that quantity can’t replace it—and knowing we can spot youth a hundred points and still come out ahead. We don’t rush our children to grow up, because we’ve already seen how fast it happens. We try to savor their childhood, filling it generously with what we ourselves once lacked. We’ve long since realized we can’t earn all the money, and we’re long convinced that happiness, health, and loyalty aren’t for sale. And we’ve known for a while that the road we take toward our goal is often more important than the goal itself. If you can’t enjoy the process, the result is unlikely to please you either. We’ve proved everything to everyone, learned from our own mistakes, felt how quickly time flies. The picture of life has been sketched; now is the perfect time to add the fine details and elegant strokes that make an artist a master and a canvas—a masterpiece.
And when you understand all this, you suddenly realize that right now your possibilities are limitless. You can learn to dance, to sing, to play the harp, to study languages, to scuba dive, to ride horses, to ski or rollerblade. Blow glass vases, drive a car, paint Christmas ornaments, go kayaking, make mosaics, keep bees, brighten up playgrounds, throw pots, embroider with beads or satin stitch, learn to bake delicious pastries, ferment cabbage, or make homemade noodles. You can set off on a trip and finally see with your own eyes what you’ve heard about so many times. You can get a dog or adopt a third cat, shoot your own film or act on stage, move out of the city or finally start doing what you’ve dreamed of all your life but kept postponing for lack of time. You can dive headlong into a new romance; you can have another child. Or you can allow yourself to walk alone along park paths, dissolving into the quiet, and behind a veil of mist slowly sip chocolatey coffee or lemon balm tea, savoring each sip—the drink, the autumn, the life…
It’s just that now we understand very well that time isn’t limitless—and that means we must cherish even more our age of unlimited possibilities.