Day 279... About Face (mine)

Yup.  I look at this face every day, several times a day and have for (when do kids start looking in mirrors?) almost 60 years.  Over these years only two things surprise me:  it never occurred to me that my eyebrows would start graying and (is this true?) my nose is getting bigger.  Unfortunately I have inherited what I now know to be my father's nose which looks much like a potato and now mine is a bigger potato.

Otherwise not much has surprised me which is not to say I am pleased in any way.  I have "laugh lines" aka WRINKLES around my eyes - ALL around my eyes.  I guess I've laughed a lot.  And I have those awful monkey lines that go from either side of the nose past the corners of my mouth.  I have -- whatever it may be called (bags, darkening - and all of the cream and make up commercials that promise they'll disappear with their product - are lying) under my eyes.  My eye lids are very crapy (not crappy), much like cellophane.  Aha!  That's why older women should be spare with eye shadow I have learned.  And, worse than anything I have the dreaded beginnings of jowls (ah gravity thine enemy of vanity).  I don't have a turkey neck quite yet -- perhaps more like a hen's - plucked.

At this age less IS more.  I don't wear nearly as much make-up as I used to experiment with over the years.  And, because of my age, there are some things I'd like to do but just cannot.  By example:  There was a time (a long time ago) my false eyelashes would out-do Adele's anytime.  Actually I wore TWO sets on each eyelid.  They must have looked like flapping shutters.  I tried recently to add some carefully placed natural looking eyelashes --- NOPE --- because of how crapy my delicate lids are now they looked more like dying centipedes.  As to lipstick if I wore anything near red now I would look hideous and very very old if not dead not to mention that liquid foundation DOES makes me look like a cadaver.

So I highlight what I can that makes any difference.  I darken my eyebrows, I smudge line my eyelids with a soft eyeliner, a bit of soft mascara is great, I use blush carefully to contour what I can (trying to darken right under my chin at the neck so my almost wobbling might be camouflaged a bit).  And that is most of it.

I remind myself that aging is a process not a disease and and considering the alternative I will accept it with as much grace as I can muster.  I am not a fan of plastic surgery (besides the cost).  From what I've seen those who choose it don't look good (see above - looks like a canvas stretched across her face) and the future maintenance needs are not something I want to be concerned with.

Of course "looking good" is subjective.  My hope is that I "look good" for my age... more is that I continue to find more good about being my age!  Oh but I still have to be careful about pictures - chin UP, smile (to lift the corners a bit) and just have fun!