Lovely writing, Medium needs more of your work! I don't think of aging in terms of appearance. I think of it in terms of how I can throw out my knee by getting up from my chair too quickly. I still feel like a 15 year old in my mind. My daughters laugh at me and say I'm immature. They brought that up and I asked, "Would you prefer to have a stodgy, grumpy dad who was serious about everything?" They admitted they wouldn't.

Hollywood presents it as perfectly normal for a 60 year old man to date a 20 year old woman--and yes a legitimate romance like that could exist, but we should have stories about the other alternatives too. I often thought it would be funny to do a movie that told the story of a woman who was extremely dissatisfied with her older lover who had a reputation for being powerful... but men like that own Hollywood so we don't get that story.

Women should be able to destroy the reputations of former boyfriends who were bad lovers, or lovers who were "compensating" for something, but we don't hear those stories either. Maybe we'll start getting them in the future. There are a lot of stories that are so bold and so full of truth that nobody gives serious consideration to telling them. I hope somebody does tell those stories before I become too old to read :)