Two Wolves
And as the prophecy was foretold: I'm starting to have thoughts about my neck. I don't let myself get too far into it; there are so many other things to worry about. But thoughts have been had, and those thoughts came as a surprise.
Because while I've read the Ephron essay and that Sontag essay (and having followed r/menopause threads with the potential to keep one up at night), my reaction has mostly been one of correction. I sprint towards every Instagram Face-adjacent think piece that pops up; I supplicate at the age-embracing altars of Ross (Tracee Ellis) and Rossellini (Isabella). My understanding that I have too much access to my own reflection is strong, and I'm internalizing the entirely accurate rhetoric that my laugh lines tell a story, and that aging is a privilege.
And yet. We are allowed to contain multitudes; inside each of us there are two wolves. One of mine has priced out a blepharoplasty.
My face is starting to change—and will continue to change—and that's about the extent of what I know as I tiptoe into this whole middle-age thing. I think, though, that if I woke up tomorrow looking like my 22-year-old self, I would feel like I'd had something stolen from me.
What I perceived as beautiful when I was younger is so wildly different than what I think is beautiful now. And if the definitions of these sorts of things—beauty, desirability, etc—continue to evolve and mature at the same rate as my face, can I not just stun forever, in my mind and therefore also in the mirror? Experience and age demand a recalibration of perspective. They require nuance, and I don't think that “nuance” means making a concession, or lowering a standard. Stunning at 44, breathtaking at 55, exquisite at 66, so on, so forth. The feminine urge to end this paragraph with “real hot girl sh*t" is strong, but I am stronger.
I'm mindset-maxxing, clearly. I'm doing the reading, for better or worse. I've thus far avoided injectables, but we will know more later. Until then, my plan is to just stay in touch with—and forgiving of—the thoughts in my head and the wolves in my heart. They roam the woods, they howl at the moon, and they wait, patient but ever-hungry, for my red light mask to recharge.
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