Embracing Yourself at Any Age
This is the face of a woman who turned 46 years old over the holiday break.
A woman who is still sexy. Still beautiful. Still fun. Still smart. And despite a few half-hearted efforts, still not a morning person. In short, I am the same me I was on the eve of my birthday.
Amazingly, inching towards half-a-century old holds almost no charge for me. Unlike some previous years, I don’t feel sad that I’m getting older. I don’t pine for my days as a 20-something. If you’d seen the self-hating, perfectionist, anxiety-ridden brain I was carrying around in my twenties, you’d be glad those days are gone, too. My 29th birthday, for example, was spent hungover and sobbing into the phone to my best friend that my life was a total failure and lamenting my “relationship” with my recently-divorced boyfriend. It was not pretty.
I know society doesn’t want me to feel this way--beautiful and free, with a sprinkling of wisdom on top. I’m supposed to believe that life ends at forty. Or thirty. Or twenty-five? Whatever people are saying these days. That only young bodies are desirable. That I should acknowledge the current state of affairs by wearing neutral clothing in natural fibers (perhaps something from Eileen Fisher?) so I can better fade into the background.
But I am here to say FUCK. THAT. NOISE.
I offer up this profound Fuck You to anyone who feels like they might want to tell women what they should do and how they should look and what they are capable of at any stage in their lives. (I’m looking extra hard at you, beauty media, Hollywood and the advertising industry.)
Now let’s be real--I’m not Mother Theresa. This Fuck You is certainly intended to make me feel better about myelf. No one wants to feel invisible or unimportant, including me. (Plus, would Mother Theresa be throwing around Fuck Yous so freely? I think not.)
But it’s also for you.
A woman of any age (or skin color or sexual orientation or body type or ability level) standing up for herself, taking up space, refusing to be pigeon-holed or ignored is standing up for all women.
Of course I never thought about these things when I was eighteen. Or twenty-seven. Or even thirty-two. I just went about my business with my as-yet-unburdened-by-gravity breasts and my wrinkle-free eye sockets..
But as I’ve gotten older and learned a thing or two about life (remember that sprinkling of wisdom?), I’ve come to realize that me loving myself, seeing myself as beautiful and sexy and vibrant, at 46 and beyond, paves the way for other women to do the same thing. It lights a path for women from 18-80+ to take up space. To hold themselves with love. To lift other women up instead of competing with them and tearing them down.
So if you are young and fear getting older, I want you to know it’s not the end of your life. It’s a gift. You get to care less about what other people think about you. You get to feel more confident in your abilities. You get to feel more free.
If you’re older and feeling less than amazing about that fact, I hope this serves as a reminder to take a good look inside yourself and remember that you are still sexy. You are still fun. You are still smart. You are still beautiful.
