Who is that?

For me, it started at around age 37. It was subtle, but I noticed it. You know those lines in your face made by your pillowcase at night? When you are 20, they go away in about an hour. As you get older, it starts taking longer and longer. The first time I realized this sad fact was when my neighbor knocked on the door one day at around noon. The conversation went something like this:
"Sorry to wake you, I need to borrow some sugar," she said.
"I've been up for hours," I responded brightly.
"Oh, right," she said, the whole time staring at my cheek.
When she left, I looked in the mirror. Gasp! Were those the same lines I saw at 8 am this morning?

Since then, new lines and creases seem to pop up every day. I'm obsessed with them. There are times when I am sure my mother is inside my hall mirror, staring back at me. When did this happen? I can be going about my day, feeling young and energized, and boom! I just have to pass my reflection in a store window. Sometimes, I do a double take. "Who is that?" I think to myself. I stare wistfully at my children's firm and taut skin. When I'm really depressed, I'll pull the sides of my face back and say hello to myself--10 years ago! Did you ever see a woman "of age" with a very tight ponytail? Yeah, that's what's she's trying to do as well.

Aging is not glamorous or fun. Society makes women feel that our self-worth is tied in some way to our appearance. Count the commercials for "anti-aging" products during an afternoon show. The models with the flawless skin are demonstrating lotions and potions that lull us with promises of a youthful glow. It is a billion dollar industry. We are told to fight aging with everything we've got, which usually means all the money we've got. Botox, fillers, and facial peels all cost big bucks, and that doesn't even begin to delve into the whole plastic surgery realm.

It is not the same for men, however. I have never seen a commercial that touts a "firming, lifting, sculpting" face cream with men as its target audience. Somehow crow's feet are sexy on a man. It's the old double standard. And thanks to the new digital photography, cropping, and airbrushing, these gray haired men with crow's feet, expect women their own age to look like the flawless women in magazines! Sadly, we've come to expect it ourselves.

Mid-life is tough. We aren't young, but we really aren't old. We are expected to look young until we reach a point when we realize it is no longer possible, I guess.

Will that be giving up? Or will that finally be freedom?

When I was teaching high school, I used to do a poem with the kids entitled, "Warning," by Jenny Joseph. She writes,

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


The speaker of this poem was feeling trapped by all of society's expectations, but it is certainly relevant here. Oh, imagine how liberating it will be when no one expects us to look or act a certain way anymore. Old people can get away with just being who they want to be, and looking the way they naturally look. We don't judge them by the lines in their faces, we just say, "She's old," and accept it, and move on. I have always found this poem fascinating, and I can relate to it more and more each day. I think the key to having others accept it, is first accepting it ourselves, and society makes that extremely difficult.

I don't think I'm ready for my red hat just yet, but I do look forward to that time in my life. For now though, I still have to use up all those lotions and potions in my bathroom drawer before they expire.