A Complicated Relationship

Aging goals looking forward

There’s a great old movie quote from Kathy Bates’ character, Evelyn Couch in the film Fried Green Tomatoes “I'm too young to be old and too old to be young.” If you never saw it, it’s a gem of a film about a woman in her mid forties who seemed to be on the search for deeper meaning in life and seemingly finds it through a friendship with and the stories from a much older woman. It’s a film and she’s a character I’ve grown to love a little bit more every year as my understanding and compassion for Evelyn has grown. I think every woman past forty can understand Evelyn in their own way.

Towanda!

The Saran Wrap dress

I have a complicated relationship with aging. Being married to a dermatologist I would’ve thought that relationship would be easier and more streamlined for me. I have the ability as an insider looking out to sift through what works and what doesn’t without the noise of bullshit beauty marketing getting in my way. That being said, I stopped understanding what any sort of natural aging process looked like with that first Botox stick at thirty one. I’ve gone under the knife twice to counter effects aging has had on my face (an upper bleph and a brow lift) and I plan on continuing procedures as age, my finances and gravity dictates that I should. I’m lucky given my husbands field of work he understands and supports these choices as I know so many women don’t have the same.

I see women around me that do a lot more to their faces and bodies than I have, and I know some that have done nothing procedure wise at all. Both claiming space under the umbrella of “aging gracefully” which has been a term commandeered by the wellness industry but I’m here to steal it back. When I look at both groups of women, each still look at or near their respective ages to a great degree, give or take a few years depending on which path they chose. I might not look 45 but I don’t look 25 either. It doesn’t work like that.

I think a lot about what aging is supposed to look like by year or by decade. When I was in my thirties, rich with collagen and lacking a lot of wrinkles, I’d see women 10 years my junior, and think I could easily fold into their group and no one would probably be the wiser. Probably not the case anymore. It’s the miss to ma’am transition and it happened while I wasn’t looking so I feel like I didn’t have time to prepare. I know I’m not alone with this mindset either as women reach out to me via my Instagram page on the daily or hourly wondering my thoughts on some celeb or notable and whether I think they’ve aged well and/or can tell what they’ve done. I’m just not sure I totally know what that means anymore. It seems like everyone’s skin is smooth and unlined. Everyone has pretty lips and a lifted brow. Jaws are snatched left and right.

On the one hand part of me thinks the question really is, does her work look appropriate or believable for her age? That might be the better question to ask these days. On the other hand, I think we each define for ourselves what aging well looks like based on our own goals. Some people’s goals are to see the earned smile line on their faces as it gives them comfort to see evidence of a life lived. Others, want to be frozen because those same lines remind them that the clock is ticking. I hear my father’s voice in my head from a recent phone conversation as he’s about to turn 75: “I’ll tell you what Melissa, I might be turning 75 but I FEEL 30. “

Here’s me at 30.

I don’t feel thirty. I’m not sure I’d want to feel thirty again. Thirty was me at the tail end of an anxiety driven, terrified, hanging on by a thread young adulthood. I blazed through my twenties with my hair, cigarettes - and a lot of times - my life on fire. It was fun, but I’m not sure it was the kind of fun I’d be dying to get back to if I could. So in that case, I’m quite comfortable with the aging process. I sometimes feel like my mind, like my vision is becoming slightly less sharp. I squint to see a little bit closer, and metaphorically to think a little clearer. I’m ok with that. Some of the sharp edges of my relationships have rounded over the years to something softer, some to something duller.

I’ve learned there’s a difference.

I live in a world where beauty and the aging process is a daily, of not hourly conversation. Between my husband’s practice, my friends and my ever growing Instagram account on all things dermatology, skin and aging, it’s not something I get much of a break from. I’m not sure I’d want to anyway as from a visual and a psychological point of view it fascinates me. The human condition is intoxicating. I also find that my ability to help others navigate through this is one of the more rewarding things I’ve done with my life.

I’d like to say my own aging process is one that I constantly track and one I’m ever tweaking in the name of research for my page, or as test case for my husbands clinic, but in reality it’s also something that’s important to me. I want to age the way I want to age and I don’t know that I want to provide a lot of wiggle room there for nature taking its course. All gained wisdom and life experiences aside, and while those are invaluable to me, I still don’t always love that I look like I’m getting older.

I type this with the awareness that to harp on the exterior effects of aging is a shallow, trivial, superficial point of view, albeit an honest one. I’ll spare everyone the annoyance of not prefacing each thought with some intellectual insight to counter each aesthetic one. I think that’s part of the problem for women anyway. We can’t just say how we feel. Roll your eyes at me and sigh about the menacing trappings of external beauty and youth, about pretty privilege or vanity, I get it. The thoughts buzzing around my head remain all the same.

I’m saying out loud what the toxic positivity community wants you to keep inside lest you have a real, honest, public feeling: watching yourself age is really hard. Seeing an image reflect back at you that you don’t always recognize is hard. The invisible woman thing in theory sounds great (wait! people will leave me alone?) but in reality can test ones self image and self esteem (wait, people will leave me alone). Stepping on a scale and not understanding the number is hard. Feeling yourself age is hard. Finding out which joints no longer work correctly is hard. In my head I’m still an athlete…I mean it was just yesterday that I was, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

We don’t talk about it because we aren’t supposed to right? We’re suppose to cheer ourselves and others on with all the right platitudes (stop!!! You’re INSANE. You look amazing, I’d kill to have what you’re complaining about!) and false equivalencies in order to lessen the blow the mirror provides. Yes you have wrinkles but it could be worse! Turn on the tv and see the struggles in the world! Your wrinkles should be THANKING YOU.

Yawn.

Society would tell us we’ve done this to ourselves with our overconsumption of social media. Before that it was feeding into the profit hunger of various beauty and skincare companies. Both letting us know that the goal post has been moved and by the way you’re never going to reach it but here’s a cellulite cream that’s not going to do anything. Thanks for playing. I’ve never been one to compare myself to anyone else from a beauty perspective or any other for that matter. I never found that I looked similar enough to a “type” that there was some sort of map I could follow to get from here to wherever I was supposed to go. Maybe I’d feel differently about all of this if there had been. I don’t look anything like either of my parents so neither provides much of a glimpse into my future.

I can tell you from the countless consults I do with women searching for a plan that while the comparison thing is real and can act like some sort of invasive aesthetic cancer, most women truly just want to look like the best version of themselves. The version they remember in their heads before life kicked all the way in. Most women are also scared to say out loud that they are having a hard time aging because they’re scared of seeming self indulgent. God forbid.

The desire to restore ones features to a more youthful look usually comes next and Velcro’d to it is the anxiety of “can I say these things out loud and be accepted for it by my family and friends?” The sentence “I’m getting a consult for…...” is terrifying for a lot of women. For those with budget, time and courage this is the age where a casual visit to your dermatologist for Botox and laser becomes a more serious visit to your plastic surgeon for the skin laxity happening head to toe. Most women I know speak about it in hushed voices for privacy reasons or for fear of the “but you don’t need to do anything” onslaught from their surroundings. I wish people understood that the worst thing you can say to a woman who wants to address something that makes her feel insecure is “you don’t need to do that.”

Define need.

Having been under the knife a few times and having been told that by many, it shows just how far we have to go in our collective journey of supporting the choices of women. Like real support. I’ve never met someone who came to the decision to have elective surgery easily, and telling their loved ones what and why they have something planned is often an even bigger step than the knife itself. Nothing feels worse than having to justify and defend addressing your insecurities. If I leave you with any advice at all it would be when someone you care for tells you they’ve made a cosmetic surgical decision, give them a hug or a high five and offer to pick them up post-op.

Post upper blepharoplasty

I don’t really know how to end this because to me that would mean I’ve come to some sort of a conclusion about how to manage my relationship with looking older. I definitely haven’t. My feelings on it I’m sure will continue to evolve like the aging process itself. I’m comfortable enough to say I’m not sure I’ll ever really embrace it, but rather work on finding the grace to accept it.

Here’s to Father Time. 🥂