Aging Gracefully

Is anyone else wondering what you might look like now if you’d chosen a wholesome (by which I mean lame) youth versus adventurous and fancy free? By which I mean a bar-hopping, sun junky who enjoyed herself a cigarette now and then, but mostly a lot?

The truth is, the cosmetic industry capitalizes on our regrets. Whether those are the fact of inheriting our parents’ genes, having smoked too many Marlboro Lights or slathering ourselves with baby oil every summer on the beach, the message is “Our products can undo the effects of living.” 

Usually this message comes from someone who 1) has not actually reached the age of consent; 2) has been lacquered with the same polyurethane used on cars; or 3) has succumbed to so much plastic surgery  that there was enough skin left over to make a new person.

I am all for “aging gracefully,” but very much resent being encouraged to do so by someone who is half non-biodegradable.

Lately, the concept of “pro-aging” is taking hold – what a relief. Since it’s going to happen anyway, I’d rather not feel obliged to wipe out every physical indication of the process. Why not take care of what we have rather than buying into the idea that our 20-year-old skin is there, and just waiting to be excavated by the right product?

My mother reached “middle age” in the 80’s – at that time a woman of 40 was generally retired from the league. Perms were all the rage. She wouldn’t leave the house without a full undercarriage – waist-high underpants, pantyhose and slacks. Clearly, she was not someone swept up by the idea of defying her age.   

In her 60s though, succumbing to the hype that women needed to look like something out of a wax museum despite actually being alive, even she went under the knife. “Jowels” she’d complained. “Saggy cheek skin.” I was like, “What, now? Now, you’re trying to backtrack?” When you’re in your 60s, things are going to start to slide. You’re supposed to look like that. If all you old biddies are intent on looking 30 – what are your children supposed to do? Get braces?

When you’re young and think you’ll live forever, you don’t worry that joyful, exuberant times with friends will create laugh lines. That summer picnics on the beach will result in freckles you’ll try to cover up later. That your precious babies will cause that furrow in your brow. That the responsibilities of a career you love will produce such dark circles under your eyes. That life – “duh” – ages you.

Would you trade it for anything? It is said that your eyes are windows to your soul. Similarly by the time you’re 50+, your face is a map of your life – good or bad – and it seems to me that we should embrace the story told by our lines and creases; by the furrows in our brow, a sag or a bag here and there.

I’m not about erasing what is. Or pretending to be young when I’m not – except when I use words like “psyched,” “awesome” and “wicked” – which ironically date me like a prune and send my kids cringing into a corner.

As you might be, too, I’m just trying to survive my children’s teenage years – more lines and wrinkles –  so that I can be a properly aged grandma to their kids, while not stealing their boyfriends with my bewitching youth thanks to antioxidants, collagen creams and booty implants. 

 

 ~ Dana Gonzalez

Chief Executive Officer of:

One nascent vegetarian whose favorite vegetable is ketchup  & One sleepivore, low on the ambition spectrum