I’ve admittedly been thinking about writing this post for a while now, so it’s kind of exciting to finally be sitting down and working on it.
This is completely random and unrelated to the content of the post, but I feel like sharing how freaking happy I am to finally have some time off work! Technically my PTO started yesterday, but I had to do a refresher for another job so it didn’t really count. So it starts today and I’m off for the next week. Much needed. I’ve been working 50-60 a week pretty consistently for over a year with only a few breaks, so this is very much overdue. I’m grateful I work somewhere that offers this, and even more grateful that my supervisor(s) encourage such self-care. I feel incredibly lucky. I only have a couple concrete plans and the rest of the time is mine to figure out how to spend it. Holy awesome.
Now that that’s out of the way…
I’ve been thinking a lot about body image among women and how we view ourselves, especially in relation to aging. It angers me the way this culture devalues age, especially in women. Ideally, I want us to feel at home in our bodies, and I want to strongly urge us to try.
I know there are weaknesses to what I’m saying, so I’ll start by telling you where I’m at (assuming you don’t already know me or have read my blog). I am a 31 year old white woman. I have minor physical complaints at this point in my life (manageable joint problems) and my mental health is much better now that I’m on a therapeutic dose of an antidepressant. I have an average body that’s becoming more toned as I lift weights and do my 2.5 mile runs on an elliptical 2-3 times a week. My point is that I have a lot in my favor, so I realize what I’m saying may not be easy for some people to read, and it may not even be reasonable for me to urge us to accept ourselves. This culture values youth, it values whiteness, it values thinness (I wouldn’t call myself thin but not obese either), and it values the “able-bodied”. I also want to add that I have some close friends who deal with complicated, chronic physical issues that they may or may not know the cause of. I admire how they handle themselves and often wonder if I could be as positive as they are in the face of so much shit.
It’s also worth adding that this can be a real struggle for trans individuals. Transmen may struggle to accept and feel at home with the female body they were born with, and transwomen want to have that body. I can’t speak to this on a personal level but I think it’s worth acknowledging that the struggles are real.
My point is that I’m trying not to speak out of turn, and if I accidentally do please forgive me. It’s definitely not intentional.
So what has me thinking about this? A lot of things. I started freaking about my age when I was 29, especially because I was going to be entering my thirties with a divorce soon to follow. I wondered how my life would go. One of my jobs is in assisted living, but I’ve also been working the older adult unit at the psych hospital a little bit more lately. I see aging people, I see people’s perceptions of the aged, I see how we treat them as a society. On a more subtle (or not so subtle) level I see how people talk about the aged, especially aged women.
When working my home unit at the hospital recently, I heard a couple of younger men talk about a female celebrity and how she’s aged. They didn’t speak positively of her. I’m sure you all have heard this kind of talk before. I listen to Pandora on the way to work or hear YouTube ads between songs and there’s always some anti-aging cream out there for us women. Always. We are constantly being bombarded with the message that we need to try to look young and wrinkle free. And we need to color our hair to fight the graying. We need to fight the inevitable.
So what else has this on my mind lately? My own aging. As I sit here and suggest we be comfortable in our (aging) bodies, I admittedly feel excited when someone learns my age and tells me they thought I was in my early or mid twenties. I want to hold onto that because I know it won’t last forever. Aside from that, I noticed a white hair or two about a month ago. I looked in the car mirror and there was this small white antenna. Whatever, I thought. Then I noticed another one. I remember my mom’s reaction to such a discovery usually involved plucking them. I decided I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to accept the inevitable. In passing I mentioned this discovery to my therapist and she asked if I was going to pluck them, or color my hair at some point. I said that I’d spent enough of my younger days dying my hair, I don’t want to anymore, I want to accept it. She figured it’s easier since my hair is lighter, and maybe she has a point. I will admittedly miss my strawberry blonde hair once it starts to gray more, but I won’t be able to get it back so oh well.
I knew I’d be writing this today, and for the hell of it I looked in the mirror again. I looked further back on top of my head and pressed my hair down. My discovery is that I have a lot of white hairs! (By “a lot” I mean about ten. But where there’s about ten I’m sure there’s more. Maybe I’m being dramatic.)
This discovery was a surprise, and may I suggest even a little bit of a scary one. It’s happening so fast! A few days back I mentioned my few white hairs to my dad, and he joked he’s also got a few (his previously black beard is almost completely white, as well as the hair on his head). He also joked that I’m too young for that. I mentioned how the last couple of years have been rough and I earned them, and he nodded his understanding nod.
And I suppose that brings me to my next point. Stress can age us a lot quicker. Anyone who knows me (or has previously read my blog) also knows that the last couple years of my life have been emotionally taxing. I didn’t think I would make it at times. I often wonder if these white hairs are slightly premature aging from the stress. So I look at these hairs and think, I earned them. They’re a sign that I went through some shit and I survived it. I came out stronger, I’m alright, and I’m quite honestly happier than I’ve ever been. There’s still a lot of grief I have to sort through, there’s still a lot of hurt, uncertainty, anxiety, challenges, etc. I’m not saying shit’s easy now because it’s not, and I really don’t know if it’ll ever get much better. But I see things a lot differently and I feel like a fighter. I feel like I have what it takes to make it through shit now, and I hope I’m right. I’m always learning, I have an amazing support system, and I’m always trying to grow. That’s got to count for something.
Even as I sit here and try to be positive, and I try to encourage all you women out there to age gracefully and accept the process, we all have our insecurities. I truly believe the strongest women have theirs, it’s a part of life. It’s just what we do with them. Yeah, it stresses me a little that my hair is starting to gray already (though it’s not obvious yet). And yeah, my struggle to lose weight in spite of going to the gym is frustrating. I’ll always have a big ass, bigger hips, and a bit of a stomach. On the other side of that, I’m getting more fit and have a solid build I suppose. And I may have skin problems, cellulite, and “spider veins”. But I’m a real woman. This culture encourages us to hide such things, to get some form of plastic surgery to become more “perfect”. Fuck that. We’re real. We have our shit. And that’s okay.
Where do we get the message that we need to be forever attractive and youthful? This culture hands us this message, but where does that come from? Sadly, I’ve seen other women knock their peers for being somehow “less” than them in some way. Ladies, we need to stop doing this. And we need to stop listening to the men who tell us we need to look a certain way to be attractive. Yeah, it’s a little sad to think that some of my imperfections may lead a dude to look the other way, but if he’s that much of a shallow fucker I don’t really need him in my life and neither do you. Do you know what’s sexy? Brains. Confidence. Women reclaiming their bodies as their own and enjoying them. What else is sexy? A man (or woman…let’s be real, I’m attracted to both) with the wisdom to appreciate such a woman and the wisdom and confidence to value his own self on a physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional level. Not that everything is about being sexy either…but if I’m going to define what it means to me, there you go.
All I’m going to ask (and even urge) you ladies out there to do is to be more mindful and try to be at peace with yourselves. If we’re going to wear makeup, dress a certain way, lose weight, color our hair, use the anti-aging creams, etc., please just ask why. Is it to impress someone else, or are you really doing it for you? And if so, why are you doing it for you?
I won’t bullshit you, put on a front, and say I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I do care, and while I often go out in public in my sweats, no makeup, and my hair a damn mess, I also like to put on my makeup and make myself look nicer sometimes. I like how it looks, but admittedly I like looking more “presentable”. But I’m slowly learning to care less what others think. It’s a reprogramming of how we see ourselves, should we choose to accept it. I’m working on it. I hope you’ll join me in doing the same. And please, let’s have each other’s backs. We’re going to fuck up, but we need to try.
Go out there, be you, be wise, be strong, make your mark, and don’t let anyone else’s bullshit expectations hold you back. You are yours and yours alone.
Before I go I want to share something from my favorite book, “Women Who Run With The Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Enjoy. And as always, thank you for visiting ❤
“Yet, despite their beauty and ability to stay strong, wolves are sometimes talked about in this way: ‘Ah, you are too hungry, your teeth are too sharp, your appetites too interested.’ Like wolves, women are sometimes discussed as though only a certain temperament, only a certain restrained appetite, is acceptable. And too often added to that is an attribution of moral goodness or badness according to whether a woman’s size, height, gait, and shape conform to a singular or exclusionary ideal. When women are relegated to moods, mannerisms, and contours that conform to a single ideal of beauty and behavior, they are captured in both body and soul, and are no longer free.
“In the instinctive psyche, the body is considered a sensor, an informational network, a messenger with myriad communication systems – cardiovascular, respiratory, skeletal, autonomic, as well as emotive and intuitive. In the imaginal world, the body is a powerful vehicle, a spirit who lives with us, a prayer of life in its own right….
“The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising of hope.
“The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream.
“To confine the beauty and value of the body to anything less than this magnificence is to force the body to live without its rightful spirit, its rightful form, its right to exultation. To be thought ugly or unacceptable because one’s beauty is outside the current fashion is deeply wounding to the natural joy that belongs to the wild nature.
“Women have good reason to refute psychological and physical standards that are injurious to spirit and which sever relationship with the wild soul. It is clear that the instinctive nature of women values body and spirit far more for their ability to be vital, responsive, and enduring than by any measure of appearance. This is not to dismiss who or what is considered beautiful by any segment of culture, but to draw a larger circle that embraces all forms of beauty, form, and function.”
Nicole's ramblings 