Sharon’s Story: Feeling Like She’s Arrived at 75
"I like the way I look, I like the way I feel. I’m just enjoying all of this age range."
Now 75, Sharon has an amazing life. She’s swimming, weight lifting, running, and doing all the things she always wanted to do as a kid.
Watch the video to see why she gets choked up just talking about it.
Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Sharon. I’m 75.
Actually, yeah, I’m just doing such wonderful things at 75. I’m still doing my fitness, I’m still working out at the gym, I’m still swimming. I’m not running as fast as I used to, but I’m running.
When I was in my 20s, I was always checking myself out, comparing myself to the other girls. Well, now, I just feel like I’ve arrived.
Been through some stuff, and now I’m just… I like the way I look, I like the way I feel. I’m just enjoying all of this age range. I think women at this time are a lot more vibrant and active.
I guess when I started weight training, I started feeling good about my body. I feel freer about myself and what I’m doing. And then a lot of the young women ask us, my girlfriends and I...
...why we’re so vibrant and doing things? We keep moving, we’ve learned things about ourselves that we really enjoy, and we can relax.
I guess it was around the ’70s when my girlfriends and I, we had experiences happen to us that weren’t really positive. We banded together and we sat around the kitchen table, and we just started talking about how we felt, what our insecurities were, and we were open about it to each other, not trying to be competitive with each other. And from that, we bonded.
I think there are movies about it later on. They’ve had movies about women bonding together and it was great. And we’re still friends, we still laugh, we still…you know. We just had ourselves a beautiful, women’s club.
I was a cosmetology teacher. I had my summers free, but I got into it because I didn’t finish college and there was nothing else I could do.
I thought if I could be a part of other girls having this as a side position and then they could do whatever they wanted, but they would always have a safety net. So that was really the real reason I got into it.
Then, I got a job overseas in the American military dependents school program and I taught cosmetology in Europe. That opened up windows on the world which was we traveled all over the place, so that was really wonderful.
What makes a woman beautiful? It’s her inner beauty. It’s feeling comfortable about herself on the inside and it just flows out. And also, engaging with other women too, and being real about, and laughing. We laugh a lot.
I decided I wanted to do things that I’d always wanted to do when I was a kid and bring that energy back. It wasn’t fulfilled, so now I had the opportunity, I could fulfill it.
Wow, I’m getting a little choked up because I didn’t think anybody would be talking to me about this kind of things at this stage of my life, so this has been wonderful. Thank you.
Video Highlights:
0:02 Doing wonderful things at 75
0:19 The difference between 20s and 70s
0:33 Liking everything about herself
0:46 Feels freer when she’s weight training
1:13 Her own “women’s club” began in the 70s
2:04 Why she became a cosmetology teacher
2:33 She taught cosmetology in Europe
2:51 Inner beauty makes a woman beautiful
3:10 Doing all the things she couldn’t do as a kid
3:21 Why she’s getting choked up speaking about this