The aging woman in the 21st century: a personal journey into adulthood through culture and expectations

Abstract

This collection of poems explores the coming of age experience as a woman as well as growing older in a way that indelibly links the interior experience of aging with cultural notions of generationality and age. Aging is often identified through the changing of cultural ideas and icons and the ways in which, over time, we start to notice the recurring themes and messaging in culture. As we age, most of us reject these new objects of desire. We are no longer fooled by them since we have seen them in many other fashions before. These narratives examine expectations versus reality of life and the ways in which our expectations and desires change with the passage of time. I often change the voice within my poems to make my meditations both personal and fictional, but they all stem from the same experience of being a woman in the 21st century and changing in the public eye. Keywords: Early Childhood & Childhood Education, Elementary Education, Poetry, Poems, Women, Perception, Culture, Social Media, Aging, Love, Expectations