About a month ago, I saw an article online about a 74-year-old woman and her “secrets for looking young naturally.” I neglected to save the link, but here’s the gist.
She was photographed in a bikini and big sunglasses and also seated in a chair, holding a wine glass. Her secrets? Daily workouts, positive attitude and a Mediterranean diet (makes sense). And a bottle of wine every day. A whole bottle. Every day. (Dude. Can you spell hangover?)
The one secret she didn’t talk about was the cosmetic procedures she has had done on her face and probably elsewhere. She’d obviously had a lot of work done.
Now, this isn’t going to be a post that bashes cosmetic surgery. If it’s in your budget and you want to do it, go for it.
What bothered me was that the article seemed to hold her up as the example of what we should all look like when we are 74.
Which brings me to the photo of myself at the top of this post. I’ll put it here again so you can see what I’m talking about.
Jimmy took this photo of me last fall when we were outside. When I looked at it that night, I thought, “Dang. There’s no denying it. I’m looking older.”
The first thing I noticed was my hands. “You've got old hands now, Cheryl.” Yeah, you can exfoliate, fill and cut your face to look 20 years younger, but your hands will always give you away.
I’ve got lines by my eyes. Crow’s feet, I guess. And things are sagging under my chin.
Then here’s the next thought I had:
So what?
Those two words were freeing. So freeing.
This wasn’t the first time I’d looked at myself in a photo and seen myself aging. But it was the first time I’d let myself be okay with it. I am 62 years old. I was 61 when the photo was taken. I’m not 30 anymore and wouldn’t want to be. I should look older.
Women carry around a ton of anxiety about themselves in photos. They pose. They turn to the side and contort their legs to look thinner. They shoot from above at arm’s length. They use filters. They screen photos before they let someone post them on Instagram.
I get it. People can be judgmental and cruel, especially on social media.
But we are hurting ourselves by doing this—creating impossible standards that nature will not let us maintain. We are sending a message that we are only worthy if we “don’t look our age.”
It’s exhausting, expensive, false, and I’d like to see us all just stop it…and appreciate our value and beauty right where we are.
Since that photo last fall, I’ve been less worried about how I look when I send people photos of myself. Here are a couple of examples.
My new cat was up on my shoulder as I was folding laundry recently and I wanted to send a photo of it to my friend Sandy, who is a cat lover. So I snapped this and sent it. Sandy loves me. Even with my wrinkles.
Here’s a photo I took of myself yesterday, wearing my new hat Sandy bought me for my birthday. I didn’t have my glasses on and couldn’t even see the photo after I took it. I just sent it to her. She’s still my Sister Friend after receiving this photo. See how this works? It is good.
I hope you’ll still love me too, now that I’ve put unedited, less-than-stellar photos of myself on the Internet. If you don’t, that’s okay.
I don’t care much about the views of celebrities anymore. But this article about actress Andy McDowell struck me. (I did save the link on this one.) “I don’t want to look young anymore,” she says quite plainly about her famous gray hair.
Ahhhh. How refreshing.
Back to Sandy again because she’s pretty great. We were talking about this blog post when I first had the idea for it, and we got all stirred up about it. I remember her saying, “Love who you are!” It was her wish for women everywhere. I agreed, feeling that same wish deep in my bones.
I’d like to see us all give each other some grace about changing as we get older. I’d like to see us be happy (or at least somewhat content) with who we are and how we look whether we are 32, 58 or 75. I’d like to see us own our looks instead of hiding them.
Let’s work on it together, okay?
Comments