Joy’s Story: Confident and Sexy at 66

For Joy, the most pleasurable thing about being 66 is knowing exactly who she is—and feeling confident that way.

Watch the video to hear her story.

Video Transcript:

I’m Joy, I am 66-years-old.

I know more. Being 66 now, I feel like I know more. I feel more confident about who I am even in the choices that I make. I always think, okay, when I was 26 I would worry about it and fret. I mean it’s not that I don’t worry and fret now, but at 66 sometimes I’ll just go, okay, you choose what your fights are, you choose what you’re gonna worry about. And so it’s just a bigger feeling of confidence.

Sexy in my 20s was an effort. Sexy now is, I’m a woman, I’m a female, I’ve been there. I like my hair. I think my hair is my favorite thing. You know who you are. That’s probably the most pleasurable thing. Knowing who I am and being able to make decisions easier.

I would tell my 20-year-old self, don’t worry about it. It’s all gonna be okay. Follow your dreams, follow your impulses, and pay attention. A lot of it is paying attention.

I mean, I do yoga and all that kind of stuff, and that has a lot to do with paying attention. Paying attention to what’s around you, paying attention to what’s going on with you.

I feel most vital now when I’m eating good food, practicing yoga, walking for a long, long walk. That’s when I really feel the most vital. Reading and thinking about what I’ve read.

When you’re younger, you ignore a lot. You look over a lot, you don’t pay attention to a lot of things that are going on around you. And as you get older, you really should pay more attention because that’s part of what life is, that’s part of what life is about, to pay attention to everything around you.

And to notice things and to notice other people and to notice trees and all that kind of stuff too, changes how people are.

The connection between feeling good and looking good. There is a definite connection between that because when you think you look good, you feel good, and when you really feel good you look good because you don’t care about it.

Pro-age: I like this phrase because it’s celebrating who you are. Celebrating the years, the life that you’ve experienced and what you can share from that experience with other people. There’s so much ageism in the world. To ignore older people, you’re also ignoring experience.

It’s not so much looks, what it looks, what is the on the outside. What makes a woman beautiful is what’s happening on the inside. It’s about what’s happening in your heart and how you feel about yourself, and how you feel about the world around you. And all that kind of beauty comes out. I mean, you see grandmothers, and people think of them as being so beautiful. And it’s not about looks, it’s all about what’s going on inside and it just comes right through. It glows.