Reading Beneath the Lines: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love* Aging
I see them every morning as I’m getting settled into my car. Every time I do, I experience the same wave of shock. An irrepressible urge to make them disappear. Using two fingers, I pull my forehead skin taut. I concentrate on not scrunching my face when the sun hits me. I make mental notes to invest in a good skin cream. But they seem adamant to make their presence known.
Hi, yes - hello there wrinkles.
In the past I reserved a certain disdain for women who turn to plastic surgery to mend their dissipating youthfulness. I had always thought of this as a vain endeavor, one that never quite does the job well enough. These women, looked to me as if in a constant battle against aging, and aging was always touting the upper hand. I had always told myself it was better to take the nonviolent route — that I would accept these changes when they came, embracing the etched lines, blotches, and sagging. I’d dropkick the beauty standards and agism back to the world of the vain and petty, a world where I would be far too wise and accomplished to exist in. In my world I’d own purposely misshapen pottery and have the elegance of Helen Mirren.
But what I had not anticipated was that I would be on the battlefield at age 25. Not a frontline soldier, but still in the ranks. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “You’re being so melodramatic — you can barely see your wrinkles.” That’s probably true. But the reaction has already arrived, with it a sense of anxiety and a barrage of thoughts I never imagined I would have.
I remember as a teenager a friends mother had told me I shouldn’t rub makeup off with my hands, that it would cause me to have wrinkles later in life. I shrugged this off the way I would when my mother would tell me the Panda Express diet I subsisted on would catch up with me. I scoffed at the notion that I was anywhere near having to keep these considerations in mind.
“I have so much time before I see the effects of my actions.”
But wasn’t that two weeks ago that she was scolding me? If theres anything I’ve learned from the passing of time is that it is constantly speeding up.
What is it about these lines? This doesn’t have the symptoms of a typical body image meltdown, a physical insecurity causing feelings of unworthiness or envy. I think what terrifies me about the wrinkles is not so much the aesthetic nuisance but rather that they catapult me into a new age group. I can no longer tip toe around adult. The more of these I gather the more my mother’s friends will feel comfortable asking me why I’m not married yet. The more I can feel guilty about not knowing how a 401K works or knowing how to properly fold a fitted sheet.
On a deeper level, these tiny valleys are a reminder of all I have not yet accomplished. A reminder of the disconnect in everything teenage me thought I would accomplish as an “adult” and all the time I thought I had before I’d have to face the reverberations of my actions. They’re a call for a realignment, a new dialogue.
“Hi! Its us again, the deep rivers on your forehead that remind you that beauty and life itself are fleeting. That everyone you know is inevitably moving towards their finite end.”
Yes, I see you. But instead of focusing on slowing down the decline, I will focus, rather, on ensuring that the personal growth goals I had are happening at an equally fast, or faster rate.
“That’s cool” I’ll reply. “I have been expecting you. I have furrowed my brow in concentration, squinted at the sunshine, and laughed the crows feet deeper into their stance. And I’m okay with it.”
My reaction to my wrinkles has not only challenged me to change the way I view my own progress but has also served a second, more outward facing, purpose. I’m gaining an awareness of the contending nature of what I feel vs. what I think, of the way certain feelings are hardwired (vanity and the fear of aging). Despite the advances my rational mind has made on the topic, my gut emotions and instincts are trailing behind. And I must have patience with these dichotomies and nuances and patience not only in myself, but when I see them in others, sparing the lady at barre class with the fake tan and botox, the up-down look she’s all too familiar with. And, rather, give her a silent nod of I feel you.
I wish I could say this exercise in positivity has toppled the negativity I feel reflected in the rear view mirror. Like I wish every inspirational Instagram quote actually caused people to be the change they wished to be in the world or spend their time exclusively living, laughing, loving and not dying, crying, and gossiping. But with age and new wrinkles also comes an acute awareness of the micro shifts that are made under the surface. For each shift in perspective is a new adipose cell deposited on your hip or a line etched deeper into your face. And after 10 million small shifts you might realize how fat, wrinkled, and content you’ve become.
*be somewhat ok with
