When I was thirtysomething, I had no stomach for aging. I looked at women 50, 60, 70, sexy as bath-powder puffs, and shuddered. Then I looked back in the mirror at my own youthful skin and hair and shut out the possibility that I was peering into my future.

Now that I am of a certain age, I see things differently. But not so differently. And if you're part of a new age-phobic generation, take a moment and hear me out. You may pick up something that will make the prospect less scary.We live in an ageist society, where getting older is viewed in harsh terms. This has softened a little, but each generation seems to believe that its experience is more important, more relevant, than the ones that have come before.

And who can blame anyone for feeling this way? All of us have encountered the stereotypes of aging. People who cross their arms and declare that they're not going to use some newfangled apparatus. People who look as though they fell out of a time warp. People who make wisecracks about how their arms aren't long enough or say they can't do something because they're not as young as they used to be.

Nobody likes aging.

But age happens. There are not enough tucks, lifts, creams, injections, diets, elixirs or workouts to stop it. The only escape is to die young, not an appealing option.

The good news: Aging happens so gradually that you will not notice. That's the bad news, too.

It's good because it means you won't wake up one day and discover that your hair suddenly turned gray, you can no longer see things up close or the skin on your upper arms flaps like a bad Dane Cook joke.

It's bad because the slowness also masks incremental changes, and you can be lulled into a false sense of youthfulness. Like the proverbial frog in the frying pan, you don't realize the increasing damage until you're cooked.

Unwittingly, I made a few decisions early on that have paid off in the aging game. The first was to begin jogging (slogging) at age 30. With fits and starts, this has become a commitment to fitness that, while not slowing aging, allows me to stay strong and flexible. About the same time, I became interested in eating better, which meant learning about nutrition.

Time works against you on activity and food. Loss of muscle mass accelerates after 60 and starts as early as 20. Maintaining physical fitness demands more, not less, time as you get older. Then, too, your caloric needs diminish. You have to eat less, move more or face weight gain.

Serious downer, eh? Fortunately, those are issues you can do something about. They come down to small daily decisions: Will I choose a candy bar or a handful of nuts? Will I go to the gym or watch television? Sometimes, the candy bar and television win. But one of the secrets of healthy aging is making, on balance, more healthy choices than bad ones. That means a grown-up has to live somewhere in your head.

What's harder are the changes you can't stop. I marvel at how my hands have become as lined as a topographical map. You can prevent some wrinkling if you avoid the sun, but if you get old enough, you will wrinkle.

One strategy is to embrace small cosmetic vanities, which each person will define differently. I see nothing wrong with these. A few years ago, in the wake of hormonal changes, I developed a moustache. At first, I bleached it, then took more aggressive action and submitted to electrolysis. It's gone now.

But maybe in reaction to our whole anti-aging culture, I have rejected drastic cosmetic overhauls. I believe another secret of graceful aging is to concentrate on the inside more than the outside. A tummy tuck is no stand-in for core strength, and liposuction won't prevent bad cholesterol in your arteries.

Part of this is a head change, too: accepting yourself and being kinder to yourself, but not by giving up and shutting down. My dad restores antique autos, and, at 93, he's got parts for three more. Not by shutting out, either. Even hypercool iPhones one day will be as quaint as a rotary dial. There will always be something new and interesting to try.

And sex? Sex also changes as you get older because your body changes. I toyed with whether to mention this, thinking it may be "too much information." But I believe it's information everyone needs: There will come a time when you will not be shot through with white-hot passion. It will have simmered down to a smolder. And this will not be bad.

The truth is, I am not becoming one of those old ladies I feared when I was young. I am aging but on my own terms.

I'm reminded of a Highland Park portrait artist who used to live on Armstrong Parkway. Even when he could barely manage a slow walk, Dmitri Vail was out in front of his house daily, pacing back and forth in his athletic shorts, pretty much until the day he died in 1991. You can't stop the effects of time, but you can push back.

Kim Pierce is a Dallas writer.