Thursday Th(ink)s - January 22, 2026

Permission to BARE Arms

It’s Thursday—the season of life where you finally realize that time can’t be negotiated. You stop

trying to outsmart it and start living honestly inside it, and the body makes sure you get the

memo. Arms. The whole story of aging is told through our arms. Bless ‘em.

Most mornings, I’m in a water aerobics class made up almost entirely of senior women, plus one

aged and very game man. There’s a quiet understanding among us: muscles matter now. None of

us want to be the woman pressing the button on the necklace saying, Help. I’ve fallen and I can’t

get up. We want to move from floor to chair for as long as we possibly can.

This week our instructor said (no—she shouted), “Move those arms, ladies! You want to be able

to wear a sleeveless top this summer!”

I still get rebellious when someone tells me what to do, or how to feel. I didn’t like the subtext. It

suggested that my aging arms are a moral failure that, if not fixed, should be covered. As if they

are something to apologize for.

But could we talk about these arms?

The ones that held grandbabies and sang them to sleep.

The ones that held my best friend after her husband died.

The ones that reach across the table to find the hands of my husband, who still loves me so

desperately.

Little girls, makeup, ginger beer, and bare arms. This is life held tight.

Do I care that these arms may not photograph well in July; or do I care more that they hold the

ones I love in January?

Is aging a problem to solve? Can we outsmart it?

Tone it.

Hide it.

Distract from it.

Pretend it’s optional?

Aging is not a glitch in the matrix; it is the matrix. We have bodies that tell time. God could have

arranged this differently. He didn’t.

When did summer start having requirements? Summer arrives whether we’re ready or not. The

weather report should not shame me into changing my wardrobe. There’s nothing righteous

about cap sleeves. And who benefits from women feeling the need to cover up? Older women do

not need to pretend they are invisible. We do not need to disappear politely. Maturity does not come with a side of camouflage. We survived the 1960s. We didn’t push back on the world just to be told, decades later, to put on a cardigan in July.

Confidence does not mean loving sagging arms. It means refusing to be ruled by them. At this

age, confidence isn’t thinking your arms look young; it’s knowing they don’t need to.

So let’s reframe the instructor’s comment. Movement matters. Strength is a gift. I’ll work my

arms so I can lift my life—not so I can earn the right to bare them.

I’ll keep moving my body because it serves me well. Strength is a kindness to my future self. But

I am no longer interested in earning the right to be seen. These arms have lifted children,

steadied grief, carried groceries, waved good-bye, and pulled people close. They have done

honest work in the world. If summer comes and they meet the sun uncovered, so be it. Let them.

They are not a project. They are a testimony.

Big Brains: “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” Sophia Loren

Old Souls: "Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been." Jimmy Buffet

The Ancient of Days: Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. Proverbs 16:31

Norma Jean:
God seems remarkably unbothered by aging skin. 
I’m with him. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.

Thursday Chat: A shouted comment at water aerobics about “earning” sleeveless tops sent me thinking about aging arms—not as something to fix or hide, but as witnesses to a life fully lived.