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| Israeli actress Daliah Lavi |
To quote Januzzi:
“Everyone out there has some kind of expiration date. What happens when a personal-style blogger wakes up and she’s 35 and not the cute 20-year-old girl in Brooklyn anymore?”Granted, Januzzi was talking specifically about blogging. And mine is not really a style blog. But his remarks struck me as extremely age-ist and frankly, ignorant.
I responded on my blog at the time:
"Expiration date"? Absolutely not!
That cute 20 year old is not going to "wake up one day" and be 35...she's going to evolve in the space of 15 years, and most probably be better and more beautiful at 35 than she was at 20. (Unless she takes the route of excessive alcohol, tobacco and tanning and makes herself old before her time, of course.)
I'm in my late 50s, and determined to be the best "woman of a certain age" that I can be. I'm one of MANY over 40 bloggers who still care about beauty and fashion.
My friend Patti writes a blog called Not Dead Yet Style, and she hosts a blog link-up called "Visible Monday," so titled because women of our age often think we have to accept being invisible.
Does that guy really think women should stop caring about these things because they're maturing? Hogwash!
That sounds like a bunch of age-ist nonsense to me.
Even the most gorgeous 20 year old is getting older by the minute. At some point she'll have to decide if she wants to just let herself go, or make a conscious decision to be the best woman of ANY age that she can be.
A different kind of beauty
Yes, it means accepting flaws that aren't going to go away. But it also means putting equal focus on inner beauty as you do outer beauty.
We have to be realistic: Changes in our faces and our bodies are inevitable as we age. How we define our outer beauty may change. But I am convinced, with some care and effort and intentionality, there need not be an expiration date on beauty.
I hope you'll stay with me on this 31 day blogging journey as we look at ways to gracefully age.
I'm participating in "31 Days: A Writing Challenge," in which I 'll be blogging on the subject of Gracefully Aging every day during the month of October. Click the button below for more information and links to each post as they become available!
2 comments:
Thanks for these thoughts. I agree!
I can't help but think how sad that comment is. How focused the world is on youth being equal to beauty. Beauty comes in all forms; some of the ugliest women physically, are some of the most beautiful women I've ever met.
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