Letters to the Editor
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Are you really beautiful?
I'm amazed at how many of these letters begin with "I am beautiful too" or something like that. Maybe you are all in Southern California, or college, but otherwise I think that the Salon readership is a little full of themselves. I bet if you did a survey of these readers, most people would describe themselves as beautiful, but if you surveyed people who could actually see them, few would be described as "beautiful."
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The mirror and the mind
The Buddhist have what is called “The Five Remembrances” which paraphrased says that we are of the nature to grow old, fall sick, feel alienated from our loved ones and die and that the only thing we have and are responsible for, are our actions. This might sound gloomy, but it really is an exhortation to be in the moment, stop worrying about the march of time or looking back on the way things were or all the useless churning that goes on in the head. So you just need to be aware of the chatter in the head and stop participating in it. You’ll enter a whole new joyous world if you can do it even for short periods of time.
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Time can make fools of us all
But time can also infer that most wonderful of things: grace.
It's trite, I suppose, to say that one must try to grow old gracefully, but there it is. It's trite but true.
I know what you mean. I was always told how young I looked, how I looked as if I was in my early twenties, all the way through my thirties. I was treated differently when I looked so much less than my age.
My friends, still in their thirties, go to bars/etc. and the guys flock and look. I have become invisible because now, I look my age. And it happened suddenly. Perhaps it was a slight sag in the cheek, a bit of an emphasized frown. It's hard to say because when I look in the mirror, I only see ... me.
This change is painful, especially because it feels so uncomfortable to be completely unnoticed, forgettable, invisible. I've tried to explain it to my younger friends, but they don't get it. Of course, they WILL, but not yet.
So, I have sympathy for your fears and the bad feelings you have about growing old.
However, I will also say this: In the end, the looks of strangers mean very little to me. I love being my age. I love having had all those experiences in my life. I love having all my accomplishments, my friends, and especially, I love how, now, I have an understanding about life that I never had before now.
I guess this will sound corny, but the gifts I've been given in return for my youth are immeasurably better than my youth was. I've been given the gifts of memory and experience. Old songs have special meanings. Old friends' faces make me love them more, because, as you said about your fiancee, they are so beloved and full of wrinkles and their thoughts. It's good to have these things. They are the payoff for a life well lived. And losing our youth is the price we pay to get those things.
But, I get what you are saying. I do. A woman in her 40s is often what I call "Invisible Woman." This is because a woman's power for some people is only through her looks, her youth, and her ability to make babies. This is, of course, ridiculous, but some people do feel that way. Keep in mind that they are wrong.
You need to find a way to change your idea of what beauty really is. Beauty isn't just a pretty face. It's a whole lot of other things, too. And I'm not just talking about nature or a pretty sunset. I'm talking about the beauty of life and even death, with all its terrible and wonderful experiences. When you can see that, and see it clearly, you're on the road to accepting your age and your changing face in the mirror.
You do have a fiancee who loves you, a lifetime of accomplishments to savor, and most importantly, yourself to consider. You seem like you've had a good and lucky life so far. Relish that. Relish your experiences. Fuck the mirror. In the end, we all die anyway. There are, I'm certain, many more beautiful things about you than the way that you look, and even that will not dim, if you but shift your perspective away from the unlined vacuity of youth.
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Wait a minute . . . didn't you say marriage?
For all the letters generated, maybe someone has picked up on this already. You mentioned that you were about to be married. Huh.
So you don't feel like you're on top of the world? Like you're the luckiest, most desirable creature on the planet? You aren't oblivious to all the minor troubles that most people focus on, and you don't feel stupidly immortal, knowing full well that you aren't but God doesn't it seem like an endless summer sometimes and aren't we being silly, like high school kids again?
I take it you don't feel like that. Don't do this to the poor guy.
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That's a good cure...
>Think of how awful Melanie Griffith looks now.<
Ain't it the truth. Honestly, whenever I see actresses who've gone in for plastic surgery, I don't admire their "beauty." I wonder how much more interesting and vivid their faces would have been if they had just gone with the flow.
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Another poem...
AUTUMN COMES
and the air tightens
into a cold fist.
Get ready.
It is time to regret
the opulence of summer.
Get ready.
Your heart.
The real one.
The one given you before your birth.
The one promised you
from a time before
stars began to open
their flowering bodies.
That one is coming back to you.
So close the doors.
The swallows have gone and left
you alone with the kestrels
who yip and glide
on the gales of fall.
Turn off the lamps
and attend the shadows.
The way they move
is how to find the dark
stairs to the inner door
And what to pray:
take me back, let me in