Why do we, as a society, focus so much on youth? Shouldn’t we, the older generation, be using our life experience and wisdom to uplift the younger generation rather than dwelling on our looks? I don’t understand the obsession. Keith Richards said, “No one wants to get old, but no one wants to die young.” Could it be we are never satisfied with who we are when we are who we are? It’s self-acceptance vs. fear-of-who-we-will-become. We tell ourselves things like “We’ll get old. We’ll be invisible. We won’t look good. Our life will be over”. Those kind of thoughts are totally fear based and strip you of living your life fully. As if life doesn’t go by fast enough, why fret over what is, the fact of life that everything ages. Birth, Growth, Death. There is more joy and authentic pleasure to be had from thinking of others and giving of yourself to others rather than self obsessing.
When I look in the mirror and see another wrinkle it freaks me out because I can literally see my youth evaporate. It’s a bit scary because I’m changing and don’t really know who I’ll become. When you’re young you are so eager to grow up that you have no fear. You welcome aging. But once the pinnacle of growth has come, it’s then a decline into decay and death. The inevitable. Sure, I could get injected to make the wrinkles go away but that scares me even more. I’ve seen injectable jobs that are so obvious that it’s distracting from the person. Other jobs are so good that you can’t see any distortion, only the unnatural smoothness of skin on someone in their 4th decade. Even those jobs that were so well done become revealed as an injectable over time. You can see the unevenness and unnaturalness as the face ages more. That to me is scary.
In the early 2000’s I tried collagen injections on my lips. Why not, I thought. Give it a try. (This was twenty years old when I was 20 years younger!) Once I saw my full lips in the mirror I loved it. It was like looking at myself when I was 17. That’s exactly how I remembered myself looking. That was me. It felt so good to see my familiar self alive and well. At closer look, my eyes had too many wrinkles, so did my laugh lines. They fought against the youthful plump of my now new lips. It was distorted for me. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t how I remember my face to be. Well, needless to say, I didn’t go back to have my eyes and my laugh lines injected. I quit while I was ahead. I wasn’t the type to be so self absorbed. I could see the allure but I could also see the obsession.
Our wrinkles remind us of how quickly life passes. It begs us to ask, ‘How do I want to spend my remaining days?” Trying to look young is not the legacy I want to leave behind. Personal grooming is a must for the older person, this goes without saying. But what about the issues of the heart, the unseen, the knowing that comes with life experience that can be shared with others to help and inspire them? We are on the precipice of a new world, one that embraces diversity and embraces all age groups more and more. Self awareness is also growing and people are learning about self care, health, de-stressing, mediation, exercise and more which helps to maintain and even improve our lives with each passing day. Remember to look inward for guidance, more that looking in the doctor’s office. Broaden your scope of knowledge by living authentically, originally, while naturally preserving your beauty that you were born with which is unique to you and which can never diminish as you grow, only grow as you diminish.
Injectables are like handing over your self, your body, your uniqueness to another human being who is only human. We all came from source which is the true creator, the hand of God. He, She, It created us beautifully the way we are. Don’t get me wrong. People create too and can create well. My point and reason for writing this article is to question why it is we feel women look better wrinkle free vs. with wrinkles and why we accept it so easily as if it’s a natural step that needs to be taken when you age. The double standard bothers me. Men are said to look more distinguished and handsome, manly even, once they have wrinkles yet never would an older woman be referred to as more distinguished, beautiful or womanly when she is older and wrinkled. Why is that? Are women more easily preyed upon when made to feel insecure and therefore they will buy and buy the products they are told they need in order to bring them more confidence?
It’s the image of women that has always fallen under a societal scrutinizing eye whether it be her weight, her laugh, her image, her success, you name it. Now is the time that women grasp the concept that what they are, who they are and how they are is up to them alone to shape, change, improve and cultivate. It takes an inward journey to find and discover what lays dormant within them and it needs to be courageously awoken and brought to life. It’s the quirkisms and unusual things about them that actually is their unbegotten beauty for them to behold and then share with us all. How lovely a world when women are brazen about their looks and wont buy into society telling them how to measure up to some created standard and if they don’t then they won’t add up to much. Women won’t need to be impertinent or insolent to do this, just a bit audacious and defiant at first. She’ll become like a teacher, a beacon of light, a way-shower of change and eventually will be glorious. So, go ahead and revel in the eccentricities of yourself.