A poor nights sleep and early wake up time left me with body aches. For some reason, I started thinking about growing older. Nearly all of my closest friends are about ten years older than me. I wondered when I’d start befriending younger women whose energies spoke to me, I thought about the insight into the future my friends have confided in me.
One often repeated thought is turning 40. It seems like something to celebrate from where I stand in my early 30s but many women have shared other feelings. They’ve shared their regrets on not having been more accomplished by 40, not realizing how they didn’t take care of their bodies when they were younger and beginning to show and feel wear. They share their thoughts about moving to middle age, how society views them, how they view themselves. It seems like an even more reflective time than turning 30.
I scrolled through Instagram and checked in on Tina Lawson. She and her eldest child, Beyoncé, spent some time in Houston last week, following a jaunt in Philadelphia for the Made in America Festival for Labor Day. They went to serve food and to bring truck loads of supplies for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. As I kept scrolling through her page, I noted a few things. Miss Tina surrounds herself with women who are doing good work. She also takes couples vacations trips with other older couples. One of the easily apparent things is that she is ALWAYS with her husband. She supports his endeavors and he supports hers.
One of the greatest things I see when I see her is a Black woman in her 60s who is LIVING. And while I know that Mrs. Lawson has led a privileged life, we live in a society that expects and demands that women post-childbearing age are supposed to hide or wither away and die. I hope to even register on this scale of Black Girl Magic when I’m 63. Watching her live her life out loud, in the spotlight after loving, losing and rediscovering love and love of herself all over again leaves me in awe. Miss Tina’s daughters are something, but Miss Agnez’s daughter is something remarkable too.
Brown Girls Out Loud 