Sex And The City reboot And Just Like That… has its faults but it’s made me feel better about ageing

Ageing is a fact of life. No one manages to escape the laughter lines, grey hairs and slight drooping that comes with ripe old age. Despite being in my 30s, I’ve thought about it a lot, including ways to curb the effects. I’ve Googled face creams, serums and facials and tried a number of overpriced “solutions” that I secretly suspect are just the Emperor’s new clothes.

I don’t want to let it bother me. I want to be a person who embraces my changing looks with grace and excitement. I have a friend who delights in every new crinkle that adds to her crow’s feet. But I’m not there. I suspect that’s because she’s married so is looking forward to growing old with her husband. While I’m conscious that I will be far more attractive to a potential partner without those signs of ageing.

I have a friend who delights in every new crinkle that adds to her crow’s feet.

Slowly though, I can see my perspective changing and I think the world as a whole is embracing older women in ways we haven’t seen before. For me, a lot of that new sense of encouragement has come from an unlikely source – Sex And The City reboot And Just Like That….

Recently I saw a viral tweet that explained that the protagonists of And Just Like That… are the same age as the lead characters in Golden Girls in the first series – their late 50s. Yet our attitudes towards the two groups of women is completely different. Golden Girls, released in 1986, was about four older single women who moved in together. Written off by society, the three widows and one divorcee got themselves into all sorts of mischief in the name of comedy.

Last year in 2022, And Just Like That… launched focusing on three women, the same age as those in Golden Girls, but who are at the cutting edge of fashion, at the peaks of their careers, raising children and living glamourous lifestyles. The difference is stark and it’s made me think… maybe I can make more of my 50s and beyond than I had first thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I see that there are plenty of things wrong with the show, not least that at lot of the women featured have had various “tweakments” to control the effects of ageing, which may not be the ideal example but is commonplace these days. But I was encouraged to see women enjoying their lives in their 50s and 60s with the same humour and sense of adventure that we usually only associate with people in their 20s and 30s. Plus they get to do it with the benefit of hard-earned wisdom and more financial freedom.

I was encouraged to see women enjoying their lives in their 50s and 60s with the same humour and sense of adventure that we usually only associate with people in their 20s and 30s.

Ideally, I wouldn’t need to look to popular TV dramas to straighten out my thinking on ageing, but God uses all sorts of things to speak to us. He does, of course, also speak to us through the Bible. In Proverbs 31, we learn that our appearances are not important compared to our attitudes on the inside: “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30. While in 2 Corinthians 4:16, Paul writes: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

These verses, along with many others that offer vital perspective, are important but it doesn’t hurt for us to also see examples of people at all ages living life to the fullest. Afterall, each day is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24) and there’s no age limit on that.