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.

Really Being Real

By MaryAlford-Carman

It's all over the news: Woman gives her eight-year-old Botox. I can't fathom it. I question whatever happened to growing older gracefully and now here's a new dilemma. Let's have our eight-year-olds look like infants…ever look at a newborn? The last time I checked they were pretty wrinkled. What's next? Giving Botox in utero? What on earth has happened to our society? We have an obesity percentage that beats all in our nation, and yet the media and magazines force size zero models down our throats. Cher looks like she's in her late thirties, Madonna has the arms of a twenty something swimmer, and Demi Moore, well, she's just hot (dang it). But do the rest of us have what the celebrities have to maintain that kind of figure and face? What's wrong with being real?

In Forty-fied, an essay in www.4gaby.com by Rachel McClary, the age of 40 is compared to Eeyore with his stuffing falling out. I can only speak for myself, but my forties rocked, and nothing fell out. People couldn't guess my age and I could flat out keep up with my very energetic daughter. At the mere age of forty-eight, our son Jack was born (unexpected and totally fantastic). At fifty, I may be a little slower, but I keep my children alive, fed, and on time to all their events. (Their social calendar is fuller than mine.) All of this is without the help of a personal trainer and a boat load of Botox. Would I like to turn back the clock when I see the new wrinkles appear? You betcha, but not at the risk of my health.

Having something done to make you feel better is fine with me. Lift it, tuck it, smooth it or hike it up, but don't expect me to believe for one moment that an eight-year-old child has the mental capacity to make a decision to have Botox injected into her face. The mom in question was asked why she did this to her child, and her response was that it would benefit her child in beauty contests and that many were doing it. I heard my Daddy's voice at that point saying, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" Yes, everyone seems to be "doing it" with Botox, face-lifts, and implants, but what is the reasoning? I don't want to look like everyone else; I want to look like me. When I smile, I want to actually smile, not merely wonder if I am. What is the message we're sending to our children? What happened to unique? What happened to being real? I'd really like to know.

I Went Plastic

By Mary Alford-Carman

I can’t believe I did this. I didn’t really go plastic, as in plastic surgery, but when I was offered a “filler” called RADIESSE (to be in a training session at a local plastic surgeon’s office), I jumped at the offer. As much as I’d like to think that the aging process doesn’t bother me, the cold hard truth is that sometimes it does. So I went with the quick steps of a 16-year-old girl at the prom, looking for the fountain of youth, or at least a stopwatch to check the wrinkles for a while.

If you have any kind of major aversion to needles, this isn’t the thing for you, but I’ve been through worse and this was a cake walk. I watched as one side of my face was softened like a real-life photo shop of special effects, and then viola, the other side matched. My cheeks looked fuller, the laugh lines around my mouth were almost nonexistent, deep laugh lines were gone, and I could still smile and show expression when I laughed, smiled or frowned. Of course they told me that roughly $700 worth of product was pumped into my face. It took that much to make me look…um…less lined. Whoda thunk?

I went home feeling fantastic and new. My husband rounded the corner when he got home and just said, “Wow!” Good enough for me! He didn’t have to trade me in for the younger model just yet. But mere days after I’d gotten filled in, at the Flea Market buying my son a toy truck, the vender said, “Yes ma’am, all the grandmama’s can’t seem to resist their grandbabies.” He is still alive, although I debated for a moment as to what would be his demise.

In spite of the vender’s comment, I catch myself looking in the mirror and going, ‘Not too shabby girl!’ I feel good about it and I don’t think that I look fake. I did it because it was free and I was curious, and I have a four-year-old son and I’m 51. Trying to keep up with the younger moms and my son is exhausting enough without looking it. It would be very easy for me to get “addicted” to doing this at the end of a year when the RADIESSE loses its battle with real time and the real me. We’ll see, but in the meantime, if anyone has any more freebies they want to send my way, game on.