Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Line Forms on the Left (and Right...)

It doesn't do much for a woman's morale to witness wrinkles, lines, sags -- whatever wasn't there a while ago, like yesterday -- appearing in full glory when she innocently looks into the mirror with no intention of conducting an inspection.

Whoever came up with the quip, "aging gracefully" was probably a man or a nun but the French comedic actress, Jeanne Moreau, expressed her thoughts on it. "Aging gracefully is supposed to mean trying not to hide time passing and just looking a wreck. Don't worry, girls, look like a wreck, that's the way it goes." Not exactly encouraging, more like a challenge set up by Botox distributors!

I really hate to think of myself as overly concerned about looking my age but each new birthday imprints its greeting around my eyes and cheekbones. It seems that one part of the female body has a tug of war with the other. I have a couple of friends near my age who wish they were thinner, but they have beautiful, smooth, full faces. I caught a profile of my face and I'd swear the air was let out of one of my cheeks which looked like a deflated balloon.

Gloria Steinem once wrote that on her 60th birthday she was talking to someone in the ladies' room of a restaurant and mentioned what she was celebrating. The other woman told her she didn't look 60 but Gloria replied, "Yes, I do; this is what 60 looks like." It may have been the first time the other person had ever heard a woman over 30 admit her real age.

A couple of years ago, I heard people saying "60 is the new 40"! Obviously, Mother Nature wasn't informed of this and doesn't believe in cover-ups. So, on Easter Sunday, I will hit the ripe age of 63 and I will eat all the cake I want --maybe some butter cream will lodge inside my cheeks (probably the wrong ones!).

The best way to deal with our imperfections staring at us in the mirror is a sense of humor. Then we can convince ourselve that the new flaws are just laugh lines. Ha ha ha!

6 comments:

Lisa Ricard Claro said...

Anita - Enjoy your butter cream icing, no matter where it ends up! LOL I always forget how old I am until I pass a mirror. Then its, "There's an old bagger who kind of looks like me. Wait. What? Hey!" Always a bit of a jolt...when did I become "the middle-aged lady"? The upside is, I'll never feel compelled to wear a bikini again. :)

anita said...

Lisa -- you can't disguise the hot chicks we are underneath the disguise, right?!

Cathy C. Hall said...

Now, Anita, you know that beauty is only skin deep, and blah-blah-blah.

It's always something, isn't it? If it's not white hairs in our eyebrows, it's age spots that look like third eyes in the middle of our foreheads. But maybe that's just me.

'Cause, truly, YOU are a beauty, inside and out.

anita said...

Thanks, Cath, you are too sweet or else you're overdue for your eye doctor's appt. -- either way, thanks. I didn't even think about the eyebrows -- the glasses hide them, at least from me!

Lisa Ricard Claro said...

Hi Anita - I'm tagging you with a creative blogger award. :) Please visit my blog for details!

anita said...

Thanks, Lisa, but my techi skills are non-existent and when I went to your blog I didn't see what the tag you mentioned. I know, it was probably clear as could be!