I hired a sex worker for my 70th birthday because I was terrified of crossing the border into the land of the elderly.

I wasn’t scared of dying; I accept that inevitability. In fact, I feel very fortunate to have done so many laps. No, I was afraid of not living and scared of fading away. I wasn’t willing to saunter into that ghostly world of the aging. I needed a rocket launch — something to reboot me awake.

The options came down to hiring an escort or jumping out of a plane. Although the thought of disrobing this aging, flabby body in front of a man in his 40s was frightening, it seemed the safer choice. Like so many other older folks, I had osteopenia, and hurtling through the air at a rapid speed with a man strapped to my back might be taking too much of a risk for my bones.

Seeking out an escort meant I was not only taking a risk physically and emotionally, but also financially. One of my passions in life was overseas travel, and the $1900 investment in a hotel room and three hours with an escort could have bought me a plane ticket. I knew how to organize a trip abroad, but I had no idea how to find an escort. When in doubt, google.

Swiping through endless photos of semi-naked men draped over beds — and young enough to be my grandson — was disheartening. I nearly changed my mind and googled parachuting. But after adjusting the filter to a higher price range, I found Mitch. Although there was the obligatory bare-chested photo, he had a reassuring video explaining his process and acknowledging how challenging it is for a woman to hire an escort for the first time. And he was in his 40s — closer to the age of a son than a grandson. That felt more palatable.

My request to Mitch was straightforward: an erotic massage and an orgasm, which he promised he could deliver. Unfortunately, there ended up being nothing in our three hours together that was vaguely sensually or sexually arousing. I was afraid I would fall asleep from boredom, with his head resting on my shoulder like a child. In the end, I asked him to leave 20 minutes early. I told him it wasn’t working, and he said he was “devastated.”

I emailed him the next morning and asked for a refund. He responded a few minutes later to tell me that he had transferred the money back to my account. Looking back, I think Mitch got stuck in his own narrative that older women wanted a “boyfriend experience,” which he explained as a kiss, a cuddle and a chat. Although I reiterated what I wanted and he reassured me he was happy to deliver, we both knew the transaction was unsatisfactory.

I bookmarked the funds for another escort. After all, I don’t give up after one bad Tinder date. I slid back into the warm pond of my content single life working as a psychologist in private practice, and I went on an overseas holiday. I packed away the memory of that night with Mitch in a dark corner of my mind — more as something forgettable than regrettable. If I am honest, I think it was also to silence that little voice inside me that goadingly whispered, Who are you kidding — a 70-year-old woman with a man in his 40s?

A few months later, I was surprised to learn that the Sydney Morning Herald had agreed to publish an essay I wrote about Mitch. I initially considered using a pseudonym, mainly for professional reasons, but also because I had noticed the uncomfortable, embarrassed silence in the room when I told a few friends and family, which made me a little hesitant to disrobe myself emotionally and physically in front of strangers. But I knew this story was more about claiming my voice and asking for what I wanted than about hiring an escort, and that story needed my name.

I was humbled by the number of people who personally reached out to me and was surprised to be called “brave,” a word I reserved for people who rescued children from burning houses. Most of the anonymous online comments were supportive, but there were a few that were scathing, which I assume were from men: “get a dog,” “poor man,” “he was doing his best, look what he had to work with.”

Those comments ignited a fire in my belly. By telling me I didn’t have the right to ask for sensual and sexual pleasure at “my age,” they made me more determined to hire another escort.

I thought of the moth that flew out of my diaphragm years ago, like a rebuke reminding me I had abandoned my sexual self and left her dusty and forgotten under my bathroom sink. This time, I was the moth, back in the light, ready to flap my wings. No one was going to push me back into the dark.

I didn’t need to google my way through pictures of men with bulging body parts this time. I had a referral from a woman in her mid-60s who had read my essay and recommended Chris, someone she had seen six times. I was ready to relaunch.

My session with Chris was satisfying in so many ways — not just physically. Though I usually feel safer being in charge, I was able to let him take the lead, and I found I could ask for what I wanted and accepted that I didn’t need to please anyone but myself. That alone was a blast onto another planet. Of course, the orgasm helped, but it wasn’t just that; it was letting go of pleasing others, finding my voice and being in my body the way I wanted to be in it. The experience was truly radical for me.

I wrote other essays about Mitch and Chris for Oldster Magazine, and there were more opportunities for podcasts and essays in The New York Times, The Times UK, ABC, Irish TV and radio. I had touched a nerve; I was out in the world, and that is where the real story begins.

However, before I get into that, I want to put the sex worker episode into context. I am single and never married by choice. I have enjoyed a smorgasbord of relationships — some wonderful, some not — but by my mid-40s, it was as if the music had stopped in a game of musical chairs. I had a chair, but everyone else had chosen a partner and gone home.

In my 50s, I started using dating apps on and off, which was mostly enjoyable. But, by the time I was 65, I was bored with the sluggish fish left in the pond, tired of feeling like I was auditioning to fill the gap of the beloved dead wife or to offer my services as a “cuddle buddy,” which was how one man 15 years older described what he was looking for. No thanks. Enough dating.

As my 70th birthday loomed, not only was I looking into a world of being invisible, but I saw a future where I would never be touched sensually or sexually again — one where I never felt desired and never saw myself as desirable. As a psychologist, I know touch is a primary human need — the foundation of our physical and mental health — and it was this vision of a life devoid of touch that blasted me out of my comfort zone and got me googling escorts.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think taking off my clothes and looking for an orgasm with a stranger in a costly hotel room would lead me into a new world that felt intimate and public at the same time, or that I’d be joining a vibrant chorus of voices demanding to be heard, celebrating our minds and bodies as we age, unwilling to run or hide while resisting the stories we have been told about getting older.

These stories tell women that desirability, sexuality, sensuality and relevance have an expiration date, often after menopause, or sadly long before. These stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that we hold on to them as if they are true and inevitable, not imagined and constructed, often passing them on to our daughters and granddaughters.

In my clinical work, I hear mothers despairing that their tweens are being marketed anti-aging creams. A client in her late 20s reported having a facelift after noticing a wrinkle. I’ve also heard a mother gave her daughter Botox for her 21st birthday, and that women leaving long-term relationships were despairing because men on dating sites were seeking partners the age of their daughters. It’s no surprise that 92% of cosmetic surgery clients are women, and they seem to be in a desperate race to save themselves from aging, as if it were a preventable disease.

As we cross the bridge into the land of the elderly, the message is to shrink, step aside, take up less space. As women, not only are we less desirable but also less relevant. The one exception is grandparenting — a continuation of the mothering role.

It is painful to admit that as I aged, I found it challenging meeting clients older than me, perhaps because I fell prey to those unconscious prejudices that “old” clients would be less interesting, less open to change and less curious. Perhaps the real reason was that I was afraid to confront my own fears reflected in their eyes: loneliness, sadness, regret and urgency that time was running out. Maybe it felt safer not to look.

But I am ready to face that fear now. Yes, there are fewer years in front of me than behind me, but this life is a gift and a privilege. It is urgent, and now I am more motivated than scared. There’s no more time to stand back, to wait, and I am ready to claim my place, my power, my voice, and my wisdom with others in my tribe.

I had imagined I would reboot my body by hiring an escort. While that physical touch did wake something up in me, the real awakening came from being seen and heard through my articles and podcasts — my thoughts, my ideas and my experience mattered. I had opened a door and found the confidence and the spark I needed to restory the rest of my life.

Restorying is a concept I have embraced for decades in my therapeutic work with individuals and groups. It is based on the idea that, as individuals, our lives are constructed by the stories we learn about ourselves from our families and our culture. Some of these stories are helpful; they inspire us and move us forward. Others shame us, hold us back and keep us small.

Restorying is a process of reframing, rewriting, reclaiming our stories, and choosing the ones we wish to live by. The real story lies not in what happened to us, but in how we make sense of it. If we dare to look at the events and stories in our lives with curiosity and without judgment, we can reframe and integrate them to restory a life that is our own, not the version others constructed for us.

By telling, retelling and rewriting and having conversations about my 70th birthday story, I am reframing my past and my future, propelling myself forward into a story that is mine — a story not about the escorts, not about what happened in the tangled sheets, but about daring to find my voice, to ask for what I wanted without trying to please others.

And now, instead of shrinking and disappearing, I am expanding with every conversation. As I peel another layer off, I discover something new about myself and the world, and recognize how my assumptions and old narratives continue to limit me. This experience of “coming out” is turning out to be one of the most exciting trips I have ever been on. I’ve honestly never felt so alive.

Anyone can pause and restory their lives at any age. We don’t need to jump out of airplanes or hire escorts. We can learn to trust our voice and ask for what we want in our relationships with a partner, a friend or a work colleague; take a risk and try something new; learn something new; push our bodies; push our minds. We don’t need to do it alone — we can join a tribe and ask for support.

It takes courage to name the stories we are still holding on to about being small, not worthy, not lovable, but once we do, they lose their power over us. By trusting ourselves and taking one risk and then another, we wake ourselves up — one breath at a time.

After decades as a psychologist listening to other people’s stories, I realized how quietly I had disappeared from my own. It is scary to be breaking boundaries I have held for so long about nondisclosure as a therapist, and choosing to show up as a vulnerable, flawed human being. Perhaps that is the gift and the beauty of aging: My time is now because there is no more time to wait. I can take the risk or stay silent. I am loving conversations that debunk the myth of the wise therapist and thrilled to be joining everyone else in this wild, messy ride that is life.

Though these conversations are exciting and hopeful for me, I also have feelings of sadness and regret. As I dare to see myself and be seen, there is pain. I see missed opportunities and stories that held me back. I wish my 30-year-old self had known about this agency and the power I now know I have. I wish I could tell her that she is enough; her body is beautiful, she is lovable, and she doesn’t need to keep pleasing others to earn love. But I know she wasn’t ready to hear that back then. I like to imagine she would be thrilled to see me dancing — not shuffling — into the land of people fortunate enough to experience the adventure and challenges of aging.

In fact, my story is far from over. I continue to seek out adventures that connect me to touch. I have booked three sessions with a female tantric healer in the hope of getting closer to my fantasy of a state of body and mind free from all physical and mental constraints. I want to be suspended for a moment in space — vibrating and humming like hundreds of Tibetan bells — as another layer peels off of me.

Gail Rice is a Canadian-born, Sydney-based psychologist and writer whose work explores aging, desire and reinvention. Her essays have appeared internationally, and she has been featured on many podcasts, including The New York Times’ “Modern Love.” She is a contributor to the forthcoming anthology “More Than a MILF: Sex and the Aging Female Body” and is currently writing a memoir.

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