Thinking this morning about the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph and the way that the women of my generation around me have all been so eager to declare themselves old women, or describe themselves with words like "nana-core", etc.

While society devalues and marginalizes older women, many millennial women and even some gen Z women I know have been quick to adopt the mantle, at least as part of a bouquet of identities we festoon our selves with, as a way of trying to escape both the violence of being valued for the youthfulness of our bodies, and the constraints of the performance of womanhood in general. Instead we see that the identity of the elderly woman, as someone society no longer has any use for, allows for comfort, mischief, joy, and often community, and we seek to claim that freedom to live for ourselves.

When I am old I will wear purple and put brandy in my tea. I will solve murders and spray paint breasts onto fences. I will laugh with my friends and feed children sweets.

And so I have chosen to be old ever since I was young.