Self-image

Chasing Youth


A recent headline story at MSNBC that discussed the downside of plastic surgery and other medical beauty enhancers and age “restoratives” got me thinking, yet again, about the fact that I am approaching fifty.  There is a great line in the film When Harry Met Sally about turning forty when the Sally character wails to Harry that she is going to be forty soon and when he reminds her that this “soon” is still eight years off she replies, “But its out there.”  And I think probably every woman understood what she meant. Old looms for women in a way that it doesn’t for men.  And it’s not that men aren’t judged physically – they are – but more in terms of weight and fitness than for getting older with its requisite wrinkles and hair loss. Women are condemned for it all. The loss of skin tone. The weight gain. The wrinkles. The graying hair. Mainly just for the fact that we can’t stay twenty. Although seriously, who wants to stay twenty?  Aside from the youthful appearance and stamina, there is the larger issue of the lack of common sense and wisdom that only life and experience can bring.  Speaking for myself only, I would not trade who I am and what I know to be the twenty year old girl I was again.

Still women, many of them, will try just about anything within their budgeted grasp (and a few beyond) to keep the obvious signs of age at bay. The trouble is that anymore these methods of age eradication are too easy for the average person to spot which leaves them not marveling at the woman’s youthful appearance but trying to guess just how old she really is.

Botox is a curious thing. It’s poison really, but it is used to paralyze facial muscles which has the effect of smoothing wrinkles. The dangers were supposedly minimal but the most recent studies have found that contrary to what doctors who use botox have told patients, the toxin can and does cross the brain’s blood barrier.  So in addition to a smooth, expressionless face, a person is also exposing brain tissue to a deadly toxin.  Who knew?  Well not the people who touted Botox as some miraculous fountain of faux youth, and they really should have.  Known that is.  It’s not as though patients need to be wrinkle free to make it through a day as opposed to say migraine sufferers who also receive injections of Botox as a form of preventative treatment.  If a person were to weigh the benefits against the risk, which group of people are taking the bigger chance?

We women bear some of the responsibility for this obsession.  We willingly support industries which hack none to subtly at our self-images.  We buy the magazines, the cosmetics and the hair dye. We diet or jump on every exercise bandwagon to roll by or swallow dubious pills that tout even more dubious results. I don’t know that we can be entirely blamed though.  Would we know that we should be unhappy with aging if the end result – being marginalized – were not so evident in our culture?

I admit I highlight my hair to hide the loss of pigment (I can’t call it graying because the strands are snow-white), but I haven’t succumbed to a full on dye because I know I am too lazy to maintain something like that.  And I exercise but this stems back to my fat pre adult teen years when I was “such a pretty face”. The trauma lingers. I also have a pretty strict diet though this owes nearly entirely to my food allergies and loss of gallbladder than a love of self-deprivation.  So am I part of the the problem? Fifty looms – five and a half years – and I can’t say that the idea is welcome or repugnant at this point. I really don’t know what I will look like by then though I am sure that my husband will still find my bum luscious though I doubt that I will be attracting any whistles from the population at large (though interestingly I did get a whistle while running last week at the gym – not bad for forty-four.)

Youth is best left to the young. The rest of us might be better off redefining what beauty looks like at 40 or 50 and beyond rather than letting the standards be set for us. Or better yet, we might try focusing on things that are real aging issues like maintaining our health and our minds.

A Short History of Hairless Women


I shaved my legs today for the first time in, oh – I don’t know, three months? Can’t say why I let them go/grow but there is something about the endless cold and constant of underwear that reaches to your ankle bones that simply doesn’t inspire one to tend to leg hair. Besides, my husband only just recently noticed that I had stopped, so it can’t be that big of a deal to men despite the fact that smooth silky legs are sold to women by advertisers as being some sort of aphrodisiac. This is probably only the second or third time in my life that I have allowed the hair on my leg to attain noticeable length. The first time was against my will as my mother refused to discuss the possibility of my shaving my legs until I was fourteen, and at the time in spite of my fury with such an arbitary decision, I felt grateful to be allowed to shave my armpits as soon as it became noticeable. The second time I was in my mid-ish twenties. It was the summer that the first of my high school friends, Amy, got married. I wasn’t dating and being a red-head naturally my leg hair was very light in color. You couldn’t see it unless you were inches away and no one was interested in getting that close at the time. I found shaving tedious and like many young women reserved shaving for times of actual relationships that might involve – up close inspections. I spent a lot of my twenties unshaven. This latest hirsute state was not due to lack of anything but rested more upon the cold and the dry air up here which has caused me to limit showering time and use a lot of lotion. Shaving promotes dry winter itch which is not a fire that needs fuel. Now that the weather is warming (notice I didn’t say “warm”) and I have had occasion to wear a bathing suit (and the fact that when he did notice the hair my husband was visibly shocked – though not put off), I decided that perhaps it was time to mow. I dulled only one razor though it was a quarto-bladed one and now have smooth legs from a few inches above the knee to the foot on each leg. It is a remarkably sensual feeling for the first few hours. It also really accentuates the deathly white pallor of one’s winter hide. Just for fun, I googled up the history of shaving for both men and women. Men, it seems shaved for reasons sensible and not so, but women – unsurprisingly – were the victims of advertising that played on their deep-seated body image problems. Leave it to the “beauty” industry to get ugly.

Getting My Hair Done


I was dragging around yesterday at lunch and Rob noticed. He asked me what was wrong and I told him I had a hair appointment and didn’t feel like going. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound like anything to be morose about and it seems silly, but as I explained to Rob – I just wanted to do something other than sit for two hours in a salon making small talk with my stylist. Fredrique is a nice man, but we rarely ever talk about anything but American politics and American cultural defects. Cindy, my previous stylist, would chat with me about kids – mine and hers and tell me what she’d been up to. The time went by much faster. But the best thing about Cindy is that she would let me not talk if that’s what I wanted. I didn’t feel any pressure to fill the air or entertain her. And then there was the sitting for two hours without much to do. Okay, I could have taken a book and I did talk my yoga for dummies, but I really wanted to spend some serious time on my writing. My writing muse is feeling quite neglected and isn’t happy with the snatched moments I have been getting in the past couple of weeks. Life calls and I answer and the muse knows this is the reality, but she was pouty yesterday because my best friend sent me a very belated birthday gift of a novel formatting program. The muse very much wanted to spend a few hours with it yesterday, but I had this hair appointment. We are finally getting to take our honeymoon as part of the trip. Katy is staying with the folks and Rob and I are taking off for a cabin in Southern Illinois for five days on our own. I can’t have grays and roots showing. Hairy legs perhaps, but not grays and roots. So, I sucked it up and went to the appointment. And it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Reading helped. The shampoo girl gave me a great scalp massage. Reminded me a bit of the lonely caregiver days when I would go to get a wash and style at Cost Cutters just to have someone rub my head. Sad, pathetic days. Yesterday it mainly reminded me of Rob and the way he rubs my head at night when I am laying on his chest. Happy, contented days. Having my hair done in the middle of the day is another reminder of what a different life I live now. I don’t have to be anywhere at any given time expect for school drop-off and home in time to meet the bus later. I have things to do – shopping, housework, cooking, working out, writing – but there is no specific time table for any of this. I don’t have to dress any particular way, so I am usually pretty casual in my yoga togs. I don’t wear a bra anymore. I don’t shave my legs. I never wear make-up. They were things that seemed so non-sensical  when I had to do them and did I really have to do them? Or was I just lock step with all the other women in this post-feminist era? Yoga duds aren’t professional. Bralessness is too provacative. Make-up free is a sign of disinterest. Hairy legs are just gross (and another sign you don’t care about yourself or upkeep). A new blogging friend asked via a comment why I didn’t identify with feminists. And perhaps this is part of it. Feminism is just another way we women pressure each other to conform to a standard that does not fit every one of us. I never wanted a career. I just wanted a job that I enjoyed. Do what you enjoy and the money will follow. Isn’t that what they say? I never saw motherhood as limiting or men as evil. Although both can be true, motherhood is about sacrifice and most men are not bright enough to be evil – just annoying (as are women). Feminism is black and white and I have always known that life is not that simplistic. Being blond is my only girly vice really and even that takes a back seat to my muse.