Thinking About.....Beauty

from here.

As you already know, I am a bit of a magazine-aholic.  But recently I have been dropping subscriptions left and right.  Magazines, oddly enough, are starting to get on my nerves.  Not all magazines; namely those that focus on fashion and beauty. 

Just to be completely honest with you, I am getting really sick and tired of reading about what I should be doing to make myself look younger.  Do you feel the same way?  It seems that every magazine I open is obsessively devoting their pages to scientific studies and lists of chemicals and products that I should be searching out and saving my money for.  Big crazy words that I can't pronounce and am not sure that I would even want to slather on my body.  Expensive and scary sounding medical procedures for everything you can possibly imagine.  The latest "super foods" and vitamin cocktails.  It's enough to make you crazy!

And all in the name of what?  Not accepting our own age?  Avoiding the inevitable? 
What ever happened to "growing old gracefully"? 

I am not bothered by the fact that women want to look younger than they are.  That's just human nature.  But I am bothered that women think that twenty-somethings are the only beautiful people in the world.  I am 31 years old and I get more comfortable in my own skin with every year that passes.  Yes, I would love to fill the crevice that runs between my eyebrows.  I would like for my hands to look  more youthful.  And I dread the lines that are forming around my mouth.  But that's part of life!  It's part of growing older.  Would you believe me if I told you that  I snicker every time I spy a new gray hair shining in my dark brown mop?  I sort of get a kick out of it.  And I am tired of being told that I need to cover those silver strands up and rub three different creams around my eyes at night and inject a filler into my forehead. 

I am not going to promise that I won't end up coloring my hair.  And I definitely won't promise that I won't have the veins in my legs injected at some point.  But I just wish that the main focus of the fashion and beauty industry would shift away from anti-aging miracles.  I wish that there were more examples of beautiful women who choose to age naturally, and do it with grace and panache.  I wish that we were all more open to see the beauty in maturity. 

And, for Heaven's sake, magazines!!!  Can't you find anything better to talk about? 
What do you think?  Chime in.  Tell me how all the pressure to look young makes you feel.