Be Your Age

Hey, I said I'd save it for another post. So here it is.

Our society is in need of a serious smack to the back of its head. Why have we made aging such an impending doom? When did experience and wisdom come to mean so little in the face of youthful physicality? We obsequiously buy into the force fed images society provides, and think that it is us, in all our aged beauty, who need to change. Age eradicating procedures are an unnatural and wrong creation. That might seem harsh, but goddamnit it's true. People go into potentially life threatening surgeries to make themselves look younger. That's frightening. And forget the surgeries that wind up getting botched.

Society has been playing this game for a long time now, it's no secret. Young is attractive.  This is especially true for women, but in the entertainment world, it's just as true for men. And the best word I can think of to sum this up is, "sad." It's driving people nuts. Lindsey Lohan fell victim to it's tragic song, as will many other young women. They're not even waiting until the wrinkles start coming out before they go under the needle and knife now. It's downright scary. Have we really ingrained so blistering a sense of insecurity into our mothers and daughters, that they can't ever look in the mirror without seeing something wrong?

There's no reason that an aging woman should feel ashamed, or less attractive. Some of the most beautiful women in the world are well out of their younger days. I find a quiet and subtle, yet powerful beauty in an older woman who has accepted her age. A confidence if you will, to stand up to society and all the girls and say, "yea, I'm getting older, and it's just fine." Age is only as important as you make it.

Wear your wrinkles with pride, don't try to eradicate them. They're not a disease, or an infection. They're a sign of your experience and perseverance in this tough world. You don't see Bob Dylan or Robert Plant trying to erase them.  Life leaves scars and marks everywhere. Time puts it's stamp on anything and everything. Trying to fight that is as futile as fighting the tides. Acceptance is the only answer, but the cosmetic industry certainly doesn't want you to believe that. Nor does the entertainment industry. Because they think age is an adversary. They'd have you believe that it's your age that will be a detriment to your career, but that's simply not true. Insecurity is a detriment to your career. If you age with confidence, than no matter what you look like, you'll have aged with grace.

There are women out there in their 20's getting botox. There are children getting their lips pumped full of collagen because their parents think it'll give them the look they need to get into show biz. If you have to change yourself to meet the mark, then the mark is the problem. And you need to ask yourself, who is setting this mark? Who is manufacturing this ridiculous kind of thinking that makes it difficult for people to naturally progress through life? Accept your age. Look your age. Be your age. I won't tell you to act your age, because everyone's allowed to be a little immature. But understand that age is not a number, it's an attitude. My grandmother is in her 80's, but you'd never know it in a million years. Yes, she's fortunate enough to have good genes, but she's also got spirit and personality that keep her younger than most 60 year olds. So what good is that number besides for candles on a cake? Your as old as you act and feel, it's that simple.

And you know what the thing of it is for me? Plastic surgery, botox, all these things, they don't actually work! Yes, they make you look different. And you may think you look younger. I don't. You just look reconstructed. It's not like people can't tell when you've had work done. So now you're just a plastic surgery case. Does anyone actually think you look better? That's the thing I've never been able to get over. And maybe I'm the exception, but almost never have I seen a woman who's had work done and found her attractive. Maybe it's just the knowledge alone that she underwent that kind of procedure that makes her unattractive to me. I can't say. I'd probably need a few sessions on the couch for that one. But I can tell you with the utmost of confidence that there is no turning the clock back. There is no way to stay young looking. Everyone gets older, minute by minute. How you choose to deal with that speaks volumes to the kind of person you are.