Ageing is brutal. I am determined to age gracefully, I look at the effects of cosmetic procedures later down the line and I know I don’t want that aesthetically, even if I could consider stuffing all those poisons into my body, which I can’t.
But these middle-ground years, before all those procedures take their hideous effects, my social peers are looking decidedly smoother and perter and younger than me.
Twinned with the bloom of my soon to be teen daughter, flawless, lithe and utterly divine, I am super conscious of my need for good lighting and flattering angles to find a picture that resembles who I remember myself to be.
Because I was pretty, not head turning beautiful, but enough to walk confidently through a bar and feel appreciated. I also used it, it was a tool, a manipulation, sometimes even a weapon. Before I discovered my greater passions of motherhood, health and truth, my looks were my validity in the world.
And so ageing is brutal.
Even though I don’t value my beauty through the same lens, it was still part of my history and my arsenal and to see it shift and change with Father Time, to catch that glance in the mirror and double take, because in my head I’m still twenty something, it’s hard.
I’m not going to lie. I struggle with it. Especially in the context of our society with the anti-ageing terrifying cosmetics that are marketed so intensely. I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of them, but it’s hard to hold the faith and trust when all around are justifying the distortion of our features as empowering.
I know this is false, in fact it makes me cringe and laugh to hear these ‘feminists’ claim they are spending their money, time and body because they’re the ultimate version of empowerment. It’s all backwards and messed up. I know this.
And I used to be pretty, young and fresh. Even without this insane pressure, I think I would struggle to lose what was once my superpower. Superficial? Yes. But part of my trauma survival, part of the fabric that got me to today, yes. I can’t deny it, remove it, change it.
I can only keep learning to love each wrinkle, each saggy bit, each pigment change. I want my children to know that ageing is so much more than visual, that is brings experience and wisdom and compassion too. And I want to represent all of that in the lines on my face, the sadness, the laughter, the life well lived and loved. Because, honestly, when I see an elderly person with all of that, they are nothing short of beautiful.
In the meantime I have to ride out the transition. And I’m finding it a little brutal.
First published on social media on 3rd June 2022
