“Always remember that true beauty comes from within — from within bottles, jars, compacts, and tubes.” Peter's Almanac
The practice of getting (and preserving) beauty is big business not just in America but globally. There’s a potion, lotion, cream or gel for every wrinkle, pimple, spot, line or crease. A woman can be smoothed, exfoliated, primed, matted and glossed…most of the time all in the same jar. And this is just for the face!
There is so much pressure on women to be born beautiful, grow up pretty and maintain that same illusion of the absolute gorgeous throughout life. Even though we get older (while kicking and screaming against the inevitability of aging) we MUST do it gracefully.
So here I am standing in the bathroom mirror feeling anxious because there’s a pimple on my face. Adult acne is conspiring against me. It’s already bad enough with this damn grey hair. Please don’t ask me where. Some places Miss Clairol just ain’t meant to go. (Trust me, I’ve thought about trying it) On top of all of that, there is the ever expanding waist line, stomach and hips that just seem immune to any amount of exercise. Weight that’s up and down, round and round like some carnival ride that you just KNOW that you are going to be sick from riding.
My Grandmother always tells me that it’s alright getting older, it’s just damn inconvenient. Of course, media bombards us with images of beauty that are far fetching, false and down right impossible to maintain. It can even teach our little girls that being rail thin to the point of starvation will make you happy or better yet, the next big star. We need to stop allowing these marketers with their airbrushed images tell our little girls what pretty is. I, for one would like to see a whole lot more transparency in the media so at least one less little girl can stop looking in the mirror with tears in her eyes wishing that she was pretty like ____________.
I thought that after age 40, I would be over this by now but as Whitney would say “hell-to the nawl”. A pimple on my chin and at midnight I’m still obsessing about it. Staring at it brings me to my un-kept eyebrows, moles, freckles and now I’m starting to notice some dark circles under my eyes. Damn….it’s just a matter of time before my eyes are traveling south and I’m looking at my stomach, my hips, some stretch marks and finally stopping at my water retaining ankles.
Yes, there are things that we can do like exercise, eating a healthy diet and maintaining a good sleep schedule. We can develop a good skin cleansing regimen and stick to it. We can learn to love our hair and take care of it. We can get rid of foods, people and situations that cause us a great deal of stress. We can learn to laugh and cut ourselves some slack. But more importantly, we can teach our daughters and ourselves about what it means to be truly beautiful.
