You look good … for your age
Mia had a goofy little smile on her face when we met for coffee before work the other morning.
“What’s with you?”
“Nothing, why?”
“Did Rex rock your sexy little world last night? You look pretty damn pleased with yourself.”
“Oh, ha! No, this guy in my yoga class was shocked when he found out how old I am. He told me I look 10 years younger.”
“Well, you do. Yeah, when I told a gal how old
I was the other day, she said I looked great for
my age.” 
“Ugh, I hate that ‘for your age’ thing. It’s like such
a backhanded compliment.”
“Me, too. What exactly does my age look like?”
Do you know?
“For your age” is not something you hear when you’re in your 20s and 30s, the decades of youth and assumed beauty, although, honestly, I’ve seen a lot of not so-attractive 20- and 30-somethings.
Then, at some point around your 40s, you enter
that particular subset of beauty — the “for your
age” subset.
I suppose it’s a compliment, but again — what is
a middle-aged woman “supposed” to look like? Damned if I know, but I’m certainly not going to
turn to the world at large to help me figure it out.
Some women my age are wearing Lane Bryant
size 18s. They’re overweight and under-exercised, and they’ve let themselves go. Compared with them, you bet I look great! Is that what my age is “supposed” to look like? No thank you!
And then there are the women my age who’ve
turned themselves into living Barbie dolls, adding or subtracting body parts like Mrs. Potato Head, injecting chemicals and fillers to smooth, boost and erase, re-creating themselves into what they want to look like and not who they really are. Is that what my age is “supposed” to look like? God, I hope not!
OK, sure — there are many people who think those women look a lot better than I do. Maybe they do. But beyond my minor beauty sleights-of-hand — highlighting my hair (which is not permanent, BTW), a little lipstick, eyeshadow and mascara and keeping the aging wolves at bay by moisturizing like hell — I’m just not interested in putting my body through that.
And, I don’t think it even think it looks good. It looks fake.
I don’t have some secret-to-youth beauty routine. I don’t do anything extraordinary, certainly not anything expensive. In fact, I’m pretty shocked — and very, very thankful — that all those years of my “youthful indiscretions” and of blowing off my mom’s warnings about sunscreen and moisturizer before I got with the program didn’t damage me for good.
Perhaps my “looking great” is genetic. Maybe, I should thank my mom and dad although I didn’t think like that when I was younger.
I was part of the “hope I die before I get old” generation, so I used to look at my parents and think, “You’re just so old!” There was nothing about them that looked or acted youthful.
Yet when I looked through an album of family photos recently, I was blown away by one of my mom taken when she was around my age, maybe a few years younger. Her lips were lush and red, her tight shirt displayed her ample bosom and tiny waist, her face was vibrant and sexy. My mom was a babe! A middle-aged hottie. How could I not have seen that when I was younger?
I guess our vision of what middle age looks like is still being guided by our impressions from when we were young and flawless. We saw wrinkles, saggy arms, veiny legs. And, you know, most of us do start looking like that when we’re “old” old — although who knows if people in their 70s and 80s see it that way. I’ll let you know when I get there.
So, I’m neither flattered nor upset when people tell me that I look great “for my age,” whether they mean it sincerely or whether it’s a backhanded way to point out that I’m old … or at least older than they are. Instead, I just thank them.
Inside, though, I may snicker.
All that really matters is that when I look in the mirror, I honestly can say that, yeah, I’m looking pretty good. I care enough about myself to care for myself; how can I expect anyone else to care about me if I don’t do it myself? And, really, that attitude looks good at any age.
- How do you decide if someone looks good, or do you judge it by his/her age?
- Is it a compliment if someone tells you that, or …?
- What’s your beauty “secret”?
Photo © Angelika Bentin – Fotolia.com
Your perception is your reality, not mine
“That is quite the dress,” I said to Sara, looking stunning in the orange-red gauzy outfit she wore for a backyard get-together a few weeks ago.
“I don’t know. I think it’s too bright,” she said. “What do you think, Sean?”
“Uh, I’m not the one to ask. I’m colorblind.”
“You are?” Sara looked stunned, although I was pretty sure I’d told her that before. “So, what color is this?” she said, grabbing
a blue cocktail napkin
and flashing it before
his face. 
Sean sighed at the familiar exercise; everyone who finds out he’s colorblind wants to play the “color game.” “Look, I can tell you
what I see, but your colors and my colors are different, so what’s the point? We see things differently, that’s all.”
Ah, yes — and isn’t that true about everything?
Haven’t you ever been on a first date that you thought went great, and then you never hear
from him again? I’m guessing he obviously didn’t share your version of reality (although there could be many reasons why he disappeared).
We see the world differently. But it’s not just a guy or gal thing, although, granted, the sexes often see things waaaay different. She thinks the weekend they spent together having sex every which way in every possible location is one step closer to relationship status; he thinks, “Wow, I can’t believe how much sex we had!”
Each of us has different needs and perspectives, and whatever we experience is filtered through that, as well as whatever other distractions are going on in our head at the moment — which is exactly why we can’t see things quite the way other people see things, even though we think we’re seeing or experiencing the same thing.
That’s why when you’re hanging with others and there’s an “incident,” you’ll have as many versions of “the truth” as people who were there. Whose version is “right” or “real”?
Not to get all Rashomon on you, but wouldn’t they all be?
Makes you question whether “reality” is really real.
It can be frustrating, and sometimes I feel like, “wow, you’re not really understanding what’s going on here.” But maybe I’m not!
That wouldn’t be a problem if we approach each other with an understanding that we’re not all the same. The problem is when we start insisting that out interpretation is better than another’s or it’s the “right” one, or if we judge others for their experiences.
And we do that all the time, sometimes in big, dangerous ways, and other times in tiny ways.
“Ugh, I never want us to be like that couple over there,” I recently said to Sean, jerking my head in the direction of a couple sitting at a restaurant table in silence across from each other, seemingly lost in their own thoughts and joyless in their relationship. “How sad that they have nothing to say to each other!”
“Really?” he said, sounding totally surprised. “I was just thinking how peaceful they look, content in their quiet togetherness.”
And so it goes …
- Ever had a shared experience with someone whose perception was vastly different than yours?
- Has someone insisted that your perception of something is “wrong”?
Photo © Christopher Hall – Fotolia.com
Eat, pray, love or live alone
We were barely past the trailhead yesterday when it started.
“OK, please tell me you’re not going to talk the whole time about ‘Eat Pray Love,’ OK?” I announced to Sara and Mia. They’d gone to late show Saturday night, and I knew they were itching to drag me into the post-divorce self-discovery drama.
“But, we still processing,” Mia said. “Women were crying in the theater. It’s very, very cathartic.”
“Process away. Just
keep me out of it.” 
“Honesty, Kat, what’s your problem? She found happiness after an unhappy marriage, just like we did,” Sara said, a hint of snark in her voice. “What in the world is there not to
like about her story?”
“Look, anyone can find some sort of happiness traveling the world for a year
if they don’t have to worry about paying for it and finding enlightenment in India. I mean, that’s
why people go to India in the first place, for goodness sake!” I said. “But, really — what woman eats with such abandon without freaking about getting fat?”
“So, that’s why you don’t like it?”
“No. I just think it’s self-absorbed and gives women a skewed message.”
“Like?”
“Look, we didn’t find ourselves while traipsing around the world. The real test of life post-divorce is being happy living your normal life. You know, the one when you wake up every day, go to work, do the laundry, figure out how to get your kid to the dentist and soccer when you’re in an office across the bridge from him, deal with the ex and make ends meet.”
Mia and Sara looked at me with scrunched up faces as if they were searching for some sort of a rebuttal. But what was there to say?
I’m all for escaping away from our regular life and finding adventure, spirituality, Javier Bardem. If I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But the path to self-discovery for a woman post divorce has little to do with pasta and ashrams, and everything to do with being on her own and figuring out “Who am I now, at my age, without a husband?”
And key to that is learning how to be alone.
Most of us didn’t do that. We went from the pink-carpeted rooms of our childhood to bunking with college roomies to shacking up with a sweetie or two to the marital bed of a picket-fenced home — where so many of us lost ourselves.
I know some 8 million (mostly female) readers found Elizabeth Gilbert’s story an inspiration. She found herself! She found love! She made millions!
If she could do it, we can, too!
And maybe we could. But I wish she found herself, love and happiness from making better choices while living her normal life. Because most of us will never be able to take a year off to do what she did — and what does that mean for us when it comes to self-discovery?
- Have you “discovered” yourself post-divorce, or are you still on that path?
- Is it better to “find yourself” in exotic locales, or living your day-today life?
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