A Graceful Age

A year ago, I turned 45 and had a bit of a mid-life crisis.  By the way, I DO consider 45 as mid-life because it is my intention to live to be 100.  Part of the crisis was the realization that there were certain irreversible changes happening to my physical appearance.  In short, I was looking old and haggard.  Immediately I embarked on a quest to find the best concealer and homeopathic methods for "reducing the signs of aging" as the advertisers so delicately word it.  A facial and makeover done by an understanding friend helped in the moment, but I woke the next morning looking exactly the same as the day before.  Though I have tried to be grateful about how God made me and have never really been self-conscious about my appearance, there was an increasing amount of concern over the everchanging minute details that looked back from the mirror each day.  Natural light became my nemesis.  Flourescent lighting, forget it.  The makeup bag I carried in my purse became fatter and more well worn.  I reluctantly accepted that I would need to start buying higher end department store cosmetics and that my "easy breezy CoverGirl" days were over.   

My apologies to any men reading this post, because there is most likely no empathy or even understanding of these issues.  Believe me when I say the feeling is mutual from my gender.  I may let my husband write a counterpoint to this someday about the trials of the ageing male, but for now, this is about women.  Deal with it.  

The parade of elixers, cleansers, remedies and cosmetics went on for many months.  There were even a few times when drastic measures were considered, but a fear of looking like someone from the "Real Housewives" kept me off that ledge.  Not that there is anything wrong with cosmetic surgery, it's just not for me.  Midway through my 45th year, something happened that completely changed my attitude.  My mom, my two older sisters and I got to spend a rare weekend together.  These are the women that I feel the most comfortable with, that I can completely be me around, and that have the ability to make me feel like the 6 year old baby sister with one look.  They are women that I trust completely and I knew that if I shared my concerns with them, they would help me find the right combination of chin hair remover and excess neck skin reducer to make me feel like my younger self.  But something even better happened.

After I shared my crisis with them, there was very little response.  It wasn't that they were unintrested, but more that they didn't understand why I was so concerned.  You see, they had gotten what I had failed to get.  Aging happens, just like weather happens, and there is nothing you can do about it, you might as well embrace it and enjoy it.  So throughout my time with them, and for the first time in a long time, I looked at them.  Closely.  Which led me to the most profound conclusion.  My two sisters and my mom, with whom I share DNA, who are older then me and cosmetic surgery free, are without a doubt the most beautiful women that I know.  They have the same sparkly blue eyes that I looked to for approval as a child.  The have the same smiles that brought me out of many a funk, when I was a teenager.  Their arms and shoulders produce the same hugs that have shared in my joys and comforted me in my failures throughout my life.  I realized that if I am blessed enough to be even a fraction of how beautiful they are throughout this thing called getting older, than I am TRULY blessed.  In fact, God has blessed my family with many generations of beautiful women.  My cousins, beautiful;  my neices, beautiful.  It's not just the women in this family by blood, but some have married into it and they share in this beauty. 

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I have changed my perspective on how it looks to grow older.  There seems to be a better way to hang on to my youth.  I have added a few new items to my make up bag.....contentedness and serenity.  They can't be purchased at a designer cosmetic store.  In fact you can really only receive them from God.  After all, He was the one that said, 1 Samuel 16:7 - "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (NIV)  Accepting that truth has brought me nearly out of this crisis.  Oh I still cover the grays, conceal the dark circles and pluck the random chin hairs, but I do this with the knowledge that God has me in His hand and my future has nothing to do with how I look, but how my heart looks to Him.  

Now as my 46th birthday comes and goes, I pray that my daughters, neices, and granddaughters will embrace the idea that, how their heart looks to the Lord, is so much more important than how they look to the world.  I pray that someday when I am even older, grayer, more wrinkled and speckeled, that they will look at me and see the same powerful beauty that comes from the women in my life that have paved that graceful ageing road before me.    Love all you beautiful ladies!!!!