Beauty is a Beast

I can handle the fact that my body is changing and gravity is having its way with me. There is a freedom in acknowledging “The ole grey mare just ain’t what she used to be.” I can go grey and thumb my nose at the exorbitant cost of hair color. I can laugh away the Lyrca on my hips and tummy while shouting, “No more!” No more straining to pretend I have a perfect body in an imperfect world. I especially don’t want to look like a similar version of other women my age because of Botox and fillers. If it makes you feel better, if it floats your boat, go with it. Me? I’ve been tempted and I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t thought about it. In the long run, I think I’m sailing away just fine in spite of the wrinkles in the sails and the extra cargo I’m carrying along.

Who says we must be wrinkle free? Photos are airbrushed in every single magazine. Makeup conceals, breasts are lifted or enhanced, tummies are tucked and we’re still going to grow old. I’m not saying go for the dumpy look and let it all hang out. Heaven forbid! I’d start a stampede of people running away from me if I did that. I mean, beauty is a real four legged beast. We preen, we pluck, and we spend mega bucks on simply keeping up appearances. I enjoy a pedicure and manicure and having my hair styled. I enjoy buying new lotions and eye gels, hoping they’ll turn back the clock, but it’s the extremes that I see others go through that make me shake my head.

Twenty and thirty-year-old women are altering their faces and bodies at such an alarming rate that I wonder if they’ll recognize themselves when they hit forty. I am concerned for the younger women around me. It almost appears as if people are starting to prefer beauty over intelligence. In the UK, a new survey was recently completed and the results are, that given the choice, women would rather be more attractive than be smart. Isn’t that just swell?

I Googled the key words, aging naturally, to see what was out there on the almighty internet. After the first page, everything was about how to reverse aging naturally. Gracious! There is so much natural beauty in each and every one of us. I think we’ve been brainwashed by advertising, designers who pick stick thin models, super stars with trainers who take them through three hour daily workouts,and the aging ultra-rich who've had so many cosmetic procedures that when they cross their legs, their mouths hang open. Have we forgotten to look at the “real” beauty in each and every one of us? I worry about this stuff because I have a daughter. I worry because I see so many going too far and actually putting their health in harm’s way to have yet another procedure. I worry because I thought our minds were just as beautiful as our outward skin. If we’re not careful, I worry we’ll forget that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what a wonder real beauty is.

Bless Their Pointy Little Heads, Someone Has To

Tell me that I’ve stepped back in time and this is the reason I’m so confused by the maddening mess of minutia reported in the media. This week yet another slice of news came in via a Bloomberg report that stated, “six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector.” Really? Wall Street? This vast place of making or breaking the financial back of America (where women make most of the purchases), can’t come to equal terms where salary is concerned? SHAAAZAM! All of this and glass ceilings too, why we must be back in the Eighties!

Speaking of blasts from the past, Rush, I’ve-been-married-four-times-so-you-know-I’m-an-expert-on-women, Limbaugh has pulled yet another low blow, twisting facts (Really Rush, if you’re going to call yourself an expert, it’s the insurance companies that would have to pay for birth control pills, not our tax dollars, and you don’t take a birth control pill every time you have sex, just saying!), and calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute. People are enraged, as they should be, but not nearly enough. When asked what he thought of what Rush said, Romney stated he would have used “different language.”  Say what?

Not once did any of the major bigwig, grand poobah, yuckleheads currently running to be the Republican candidate for President think to say, “Dang Rush, but ain’t you a big ole NEEE-ANDER-THAL!” A young lady was speaking on behalf of a friend to make employers have comprehensive health insurance that covers birth control pills. Sandra Fluke only wanted to tell her friend’s story, but because she dared to speak out on such a controversial subject (What year is this again?), she gets labeled a slut. I swear, if Rush so much as eluded that about my daughter, he’d have a whole heap of Southern Mama whoop ass on his hands.

I guess Romney would have called her loose, misguided or something else. I guess those would be oh so much softer words. Gee, but I hope his daughters, if he has any, or Santorum’s, the good ole Catholic family man (I am a Southern Catholic, and I can tell ya, ya don’t get more confused or guilt ridden than that), never have daughters with open minds who want to control their own bodies. In the meantime, I shake my head at those men who believe they stand tall and yet refuse to defend the honor of a lady, no matter what her opinions are. Shame on them and heaven help their daughters.