Black Women Aging: We Have Our Own Untold Stories!

Because aging as a Black woman isn’t a one size fits all. #thatsthetea

There’s a quiet shift that happens as we grow older, a  kind of shedding or shifting in mindset. Not just of years, but of expectations, noise, and the weight we’ve carried for so long without question. It’s a shift you don’t always see coming, but when it arrives, you feel it. And it feels like an unseen truth most black women never get to express. 

As Black women, aging holds a different kind of weight. We’ve been seen as strong for so long that softness can feel like an unspoken language. We’ve been caregivers, peacekeepers, providers, lovers, secret keepers. (yada, yada, yada). The list is so long even I’ve lost count.

 But where do our stories go? The ones that didn’t and don’t make the headlines. The ones we whispered to ourselves in the dark while pushing through the day. The tears that no one saw that dried upon the pillow before morning rise?

This is the part of life: where the becoming after the becoming-is rarely talked about. It’s not on magazine covers. It’s not shown in mainstream beauty campaigns, not even in the spaces that claim to empower women. 

So we find ourselves quietly searching for reflections that look like us, sound like us, age like us. But we don’t always find them. #realtalk

And yet, here we are. Still growing. Still dreaming. Still writing our own stories that we want to tell.

Aging Notes was never meant to be a polished version of my midlife dying from aging forward. It was born out of the need to say what hasn’t been said. To speak from the middle of the moment, not the end. To sit with the questions, the lessons, and the truths that unfold slowly with time.

This isn’t just about getting older. It’s about finding clarity in the noise. It’s about asking, “What do I want now?” not just “What have I done?”

As, black women we are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to grieve the things we’ve outgrown and let them go so we can grow.
We are allowed to want new dreams and be successful without sharing the blueprint to my escape.
We are allowed to rest, reflect, and rearrange our lives without feeling guilty, ashamed or feeling as if we are being lazy for doing so.  And we are allowed to show up for ourselves, and not just everyone else. 

For so many years, we were taught to be everything to everyone else. Now, we get to ask what it looks like to be everything to ourselves. It’s not selfish. It’s sacred. This season calls for a new kind of story. One rooted in truth, and grace, boldness, honesty and lived out loud.

Yes, our bones may ache more than they used to. And the mirror may reveal lines that weren’t there before. But our voices? They’re louder. Our wisdom? Sharper. And our beauty? It hasn’t faded. It’s evolved. 

There is power in saying “I’m not finished yet.”

There is courage in chasing the dream you once buried under responsibility centered around what the world wants.

There is freedom in admitting you want more, even now, especially now as the clock ticks on the wall of showing time is moving.

So when I created the board titled Black Women Aging: on Pinterest We Have Our Own Untold Stories, it wasn’t just for me. It was for every woman who has ever felt invisible while growing wiser in age. For every sister holding onto a dream that refuses to die. For every mother, friend, artist, and soul who needs a place to land.

This written post, and this space, is a love letter to our becoming. It’s visual, yes, but it’s also personal to me. It’s filled with quiet power, style, softness, and the kind of storytelling that doesn’t ask permission to be seen.

We are not done. Not even close. And the world needs our stories: told in our own way, in our own time, with all the honesty we’ve earned.

So let this space be a beginning, not a conclusion.

We are still here. We are still growing, because a black woman my story is just now being written and told.

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Until Next Time, See Ya In The Next Read:)

Xo Tangie