LETTING GO OF OUTWARD BEAUTY

From Pimples to Wrinkles

I’ve been thinking about getting Botox with a little bit of filler lately…

I’m so shocked every morning when I look in the mirror and see all the wrinkles lining my face. And my cosmetic shelf is actually getting scary with all its old-lady clown make up  --  Flamenco Red, Hot Shot, Cherry Red, Super Peppermint, and Neon Nights, just a few of the rouges and lipsticks piling up there.

It’s getting harder deciding whether to draw  rounded -low arches, hard angle, or soft angle – high arch eyebrows with a  dark brown or natural black pencil.  

Recently, a darling young woman approached me after a speech I gave.  “I loved your presentation,” she gushed.   “You don’t see a lot of older people as enthusiastic as you are.  And you definitely don’t find many old people interested in technology either.”

She was trying so hard to be complimentary, but I had to laugh.  How did she know I was old? Was it the wrinkles or the crooked eyebrows?

And then, there was the time this Fall when a  young physician’s assistant who  was checking my ankles for swelling said, “Oh, you wear Skechers.  Those are my favorite shoes.”

With a bit of bravado, I replied, “Yep, these Skechers just spent two weeks walking around Greece.”

“OMG, Girlfriend, you’ve got it going on for being 77 years old.”

Now, how did she know I was that old?  Was it my wrinkles or the crooked eyebrows?  Oh, yeah, she read it on my chart.

Many years ago,  I bought my aging mother the book Wise Women by Joyce Tenneson.  In it Tenneson photographed and interviewed women from 65-100 years old. I needed to read that book myself recently.  Most of those women confided they had never been happier or as in touch with their deeper powers.

So this year my New Year’s Resolution is to work on becoming  one of those Wise Women  -- to celebrate the energy, vitality, wisdom and beauty of my older years – to look deeper; to stop wasting time searching in the mirror for a wrinkle-less face. Ha!

As artist Ingerborg Ten Haeff said when she was  78 and interviewed in Wise Women, “As we age, we have the chance to reinvent ourselves and to have new adventures.  Arthritis took me away from painting.  Now I use my artistic abilities to design clothes. As we age, our connection to our deeper womb powers increases and we are often blessed with new gifts of magic. “

So, Dear Friends — men & women — join me in raising our glasses to being wiser people — to new gifts of magic in 2024…

Happy New Year!

It’ll Be Ok.

~~~

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” ~ Pinterest

COMMENT: WHAT IS YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION for 2024?