It's My Party, and I'll Look Older if I Want To

<Includes a few profanities, if you’re listening in the car with kids>

Gifts received on my 40th birthday included nine pounds of homemade barbacoa, a custom lemon cake with mascarpone icing, homemade tiramisu, and lots of boba tea. To love me is to feed me, and my crew rolled hard for this milestone. I felt the reassurance of being seen and known. More importantly, I felt the power of “idgaf” when I ate all of those desserts guilt-free. This is a post about aging and beauty.

Is anything worse than being seen as an old hag? Dye your hair, wear sunscreen, put on eye cream, but don’t look older. Even my 5 year old knows that the compliment girls receive most is “pretty”. She dresses up specifically to get attention. At the car inspection place, she casually preened. “Do you think he’ll take off his sunglasses to look at us because we’re so cute?” She knows her value and currency are in her ability to look good. What she doesn’t know yet is that as we age, this currency diminishes until it disappears.

Like racism, this emphasis on appearances is in the very air we breathe, and most of us are unaware of it. I’ve yet to personally meet a woman who loves her body wholeheartedly. And I know a LOT of women. Like, hundreds. It’s drilled into us from movies, magazines, beauty products. You. Are. Never. Good. Enough. The crazy part is, we believe it. Fully half of the population walks around believing it’s not good enough, every day. WILD. (I am positive this is true for men too, but since I’m not a man nor friends with a large number of men, I’ll just speak for the ladies.)

This is worth examining. Why do we believe we will be happier if we lose ten pounds or figure out how to pull off wide-legged jeans? I think the logic is: being beautiful will cause more love and happiness to flow to me. Anyone can be beautiful with the right clothes, products, workouts, and cash flow to make it all happen, so I need to try harder and do more to be more beautiful. Beauty is a game I can win. When I win, I will have more self-love, more love from others, and more happiness and peace.

What a crock of shit.

We eat it up though.

If I just lose five pounds, if I revamp my wardrobe, if, if, if. Ladies. You will not hate yourself into a better body. If you could, we’d all look like supermodels. What does this self-loathing accomplish for us? A steady undercurrent of anxiety and self-diminishing. What does it accomplish for the fashion, beauty, and weight-loss industries? Billions of dollars in profit. We can’t change how the world operates, but we can change how we move within it.

“You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” - Roald Dahl, The Twits

So that’s me on my birthday! Yes, my shirt does say “It took me 40 years to look this good.” My eyes have circles under them because I refuse to conceal my appearance with makeup. My grays stand up and frizz because they are new hairs. My body shape went from kinda hourglass to kinda puffy dumpling. I look like a middle-aged woman because I AM a middle-aged woman.

Anne Helen Peterson wrote eloquently about entering the midlife portal, which feels more accurate than calling it a crisis. It’s a period of re-examination and creative energy. Almost exactly two years ago, I entered the portal when I walked away from a 6-figure consulting job to wipe butts and clean the kitchen all day. If you have a minute, I urge you to read her entire piece. It puts words to many of the vague feelings I see swirling around midlife.

My portal work has been to reject societal beliefs and practice trusting myself instead. Trust that I could be fulfilled without my identity as a breadwinner and achiever. Trust that I could write a blog for fun and didn’t need a long-term plan to monetize it or turn it into a book. Trust that I know more about my own kids than any influencer on Insta. Trust that what matters most about my body is its health and strength, not its imperviousness to weight gain or aging. I build that trust like you do any trust: with small, consistent actions. Every time I select my daily black t-shirt, I choose to not spend time worrying about what to wear. Every time I do squats, I choose to strengthen my legs instead of fret that they’re bulking up.

Let’s be real, though. A lifetime of conditioning doesn’t disappear in a few years. Our extended family is taking a vacation to Phoenix in April, and the vacation home has a pool. Swimsuit season is coming in April this year [horrified and crying emojis here]. My first reaction was not to stand firm in my conviction that beauty is an arbitrary definition used to sell products. My reaction was to pull out my calendar and say, OK, I’ve got 12 weeks to work out consistently before debuting my mom two-piece.

Let’s check the logic here. What I’m saying is that I will feel “better” if my body is more toned or slimmer in a swimsuit. My life will somehow be more fulfilling, and I’ll be happier. Never mind that we are traveling to celebrate a big family milestone and make memories. What I really need is to have a slightly flatter stomach to debut to…the man who’s committed to me already, a bunch of kids under 5, and my in-laws. Doesn’t that sound crazy when I actually spell it out? For an antidote to that poisonous thinking, I give you my newest mantra:

“The opposite of poor body image isn’t believing you are beautiful. It is believing that your presence is more valuable than your appearance.” - Eli Harwood, MA, LPC

Presence over appearance. It shifts everything. Instead of spending time doing your hair and makeup, you could spend more intentional time on the experience you’re preparing for. Instead of spending your precious child-free hours moaning about the bags under your eyes, you could engage in a meaningful conversation about the isolation of motherhood. I had two birthday events this year, and at each of them, I made a rule. No self-disparagement. We are celebrating life, and celebration does not include punishing yourself for eating the cake.

We are led to believe that what we want is to be beautiful and have beautiful people all around us. I believe that what we actually want is for someone to be fully present with us. To put down their phone, notice the sad lines on our face, and ask us what’s wrong. If someone did that for you, would you even care if they looked like they were actually 50 years old, or never “lost the baby weight”? And if you did care, would that be your core value, or something society has told you to believe? Do you value appearance over presence?

This re-examination and unlearning has been my work in the portal, and I hope it inspires you to reflect. We know that we’re being sold various packages of lies. But we’re so tired and overwhelmed that it’s sometimes easier to accept them than to fight. What do you believe deep in your core, and what lies are you rejecting?

For me, noticing my impulse to grab my calendar and make a swimsuit workout plan was a victory. In the past, I wouldn’t have even questioned myself. Now, I’m able to pause and ask if that’s really me or just my conditioning. Sure, in the future I’d love to not even have that thought, but everything is a journey. The last few years have brought me more serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and more courage to change the things I can. I’m hoping the next decade brings the wisdom to know the difference.

This is the end of the post, but read on if you’d like a book recommendation.

Bonus Book Recommendation:

Normally I’d have posted this on social media, but I’m holding true to my decommitment there. If you need a good read, check out:

Carmen and Grace by Melissa Coss Aquino. Ostensibly it’s about two Puerto Rican cousins in the Bronx who wind up dealing drugs. It’s really about living motherless, forming your own family bonds, the hard choices that poverty forces people to make, traditions of feminine goddesses, and navigating life as a person of color. I finished reading it in tears and instantly began again, reading it through a second time.

What makes this book so captivating to me is its portrayal of what it feels like to know someone. You feel that you know Carmen and Grace intimately, yet they still have secrets and surprises. You think you know their motivations, only to discover there are more layers. It’s a study in how you can love someone fiercely yet not truly see or understand them, which is to say, it’s a study in family.

As a speed reader, I consume a lot of novels. Sadly, I don’t retain much, and I often forget entire plots. Most novels are a brief escape for me before moving on to the next one, much like people use shopping or binge watching television. It’s rare that I linger in a book like this, that it imprints on me. If you’re looking for your next novel, this is at the top of my list.