(no subject)

[catelin]

My face is getting old. I have wrinkles and spots that mark every day I ever spent in the sun, every time I furrowed my brow at a problem, every time I laughed out loud and squinted my eyes with a giggle. I heard Nora Ephron hawking her new book about women and aging on some talk show or another and realized that my worry was not unique. It's all too common of a preoccupation of women of a certain age. She's in her sixties. I cannot imagine worrying about my looks as much as I do now in twenty years. I hope that I will come to accept the changes carved into my flesh by time as some sort of graceful patina, something that makes me different but still physically beautiful in some way. A friend of mine suggested botox the other day and I was horrified. I can't imagine doing something like that. I can't imagine cutting, peeling, pasting myself to look like something I am not. It's a nice idea, of course, losing a few years here and there; but where would I stop? Where would I decide that it was enough? I never realized how much I relied on the currency of my looks until they started to fade a bit, until I started comparing myself to my younger self and the younger selves around me. I always feel ashamed to even admit that it is something that bothers me at all...since it is really so completely trivial in relation to what sort of person I am and what I do with my life. I suspect that the next decade will be one of making peace with this new physical landscape and of finding a way to define myself that brings the internal to the surface of my skin so that it can communicate who I am in ways that are still valued by those (including myself) who sometimes have trouble seeing beyond the superficial.

Comments

[notwolf.livejournal.com]

maps are not coloring books.

[quuf.livejournal.com]

Good for you for not effacing your history.

Here's to the real thing.

[auntysocial.livejournal.com]

When I was thirty, I saw three lines between my eyebrows. No one else could see them. Now I am sixty and they are very apparent to everyone. I don't want a younger face. I want younger knees. Priorities change. I like what you have written.

[lacyunderall.livejournal.com]

still waitin' on a call, old woman.

i'm going to get all the fat sucked out of my ass, let it ferment, and air-drop it on my ex-husband's house.

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention this.. I'm suddenly very aware of the effects of aging on my face and body. I'm almost 50 and I'll admit I have days when I look at the softening along my jaw that looks so like the contours of my dad's face or the changing shape of my torso that keeps trying to get that middle aged barrel shape going and think that yeah maybe a little nip tuck suck wouldn't be a bad idea. Other times I wish could give up trying to stem the tide and be comfortable with it. Get some loose clothes, cut my hair short and let the wiry silver take over.

I won't though. Because my inside feels young and I think that's part of why I do what I can to make the outside match up. *sigh* I wish it didn't matter to me but it does.

[thepetey.livejournal.com]

Please don't do the plastic surgery, stay real and stay you. Let your outside represent you as much as your writing represents your soul. People earn every spot, and wrinkle, and grey hair. These are badges of honor, not marks of Caine. Our society, with its worship of the young and new, is missing and entire world of wisdom and experience by tossing aside a person based on their age.

[thepetey.livejournal.com]

of course, being a man, I have been programmed by our society differently. But as a GAY man, I can understand a little.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

One thing I think is that the range of intense human beauty is just so much broader and more varied than our eyes are trained to see, so that, even on the surface level, the changes of aging are often pretty visually stunning, but there's no question that, despite that literally truth, that women lose cultural currency as we visibly age. (That's maybe a little different for fat women, since we're rated so differently in many powerful parts of the culture to begin with.) But, yeah, the physical body more than shapes and contains us, it is and is not a self -- how could it not be important?

[emrecom.livejournal.com]

Older women are, as the kids say, hot. Yound ones are just, well, young. Take a gander at Charlotte Rampling for eveidence.

I saw a plastic surgury woman (PSW) on the subway yesterday--she was sad and faintly terrifying, with her plumped lips, lifted brow, and god-knows-what to her eyelids, this weird shiny/stretchy effect.

That said, the sun is Evil for skin.

[harriet-m-welsh.livejournal.com]

We are the way we are.

[jaguarnoelle.livejournal.com]

I saw a woman the other day. She had left a free box outside her house and my friend and I were picking through it for material for art projects. And she popped her head out and said she had more and would we like to see it.
She came back and gracefully walked down the steps and handed the stuff to me. She had white hair and tanned legs, radiant eyes and a happy beautiful lined face. She was wearing a red skirt with a little ruffle bout her knees and a little red and white strappy blouse to match. I'm guessing she was in her 60s. She was such a beautiful feminine thing.
Beauty is everywhere and in a multitude of forms. Change may change beauty but it needn't take it away.

[rogue-buddha.livejournal.com]

I've earned my wrinkles, my gray hair and all the hallmarks of my season.

I'm proud to bear them and unwary of those who are ashamed to be themselves.

[crapediem.livejournal.com]

You know, I started worrying when I started to suspect my hair was thinning a few years back. I still have longish hair even though I think it would be more suitable and age appropriate for me to have short hair, but I'm still in denial.

Anyway, thanks for mentioning Nora Ephron. I'll start looking around for books etc. As it is, I think our identities are very frankly intertwined with our senses of our physical bodies. To dismiss anxieties and concerns about our physical bodies changing is naive if well-meaning, but I think it's part of life-long "growing pains." I think if most of us could remember the trials and tribulations of puberty and adolescence, it may help us in some form... though I have no clue, heh.

As has been said by another poster here, though, we've earned the right to wear our wrinkles and graying hairs. We can consider it proudly, or reluctantly. With all that said, I don't see anything inherently bad about cosmetic surgery though I don't think - now - it would ever be a credible option. Maybe in 5-10 more years, I may not feel as self-assured, but who knows?

Other factors, though, I think aging may also be impacted by what (if) relationships (general family, intimate, or platonic) we have in our lives and how we see our progression of our lives to date. That's just my thinking, though.

[ridiculicious.livejournal.com]

I have two words for you: Chemical Peel.

Oh yes my friend. You will thank me later.

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

this was bugging me a bit but it just clicked, i'll leave it in heartfelt diatribe form -- cutting out on your looks is waaay premature, on the other hand that uncharachteristic moralizing that thinks it has any business shaming your mind much less anywhere near your body sounds suspiciously like one of the usual our fiercest dragons protect our deepest treasures etc etc got turned around or something, so you're down a defender to boot. they're light sleepers so, anyway, if you happen to catch the dragon's name...