Beauty

Around my 25th birthday, I found my first wrinkle.  It's on my chin and you would never be able to see it, unless I pointed it out to you.  The point is, I felt totally cheated.  I (think I) take really good care of my skin.  I wash morning and night, wear a spf 15 everyday, exfoliate once a week or so, use a separate eye cream, night cream, toner blah, blah, blah.  The point is, I am not old enough to have wrinkles!  And I can only do so much to prolong the inevitable.

I bought Bobbi Brown's Living Beauty a few years ago and reread it today.  (p.s. I love Bobbi Brown's make-up!  I love that she is all about natural beauty)  I love Chapter 1: Role Models... words of wisdom from women who have come of age beautifully.  And then Chapter 9: Beautiful Inside and Out... women who get it.  The famous women in this book help me realize that my beauty doesn't have much to do with how other's perceive me, but how I feel about me.

I love what Susan Sarandon says, "When I was a kid I sought beauty in perfection.  As I got older I began to value the imperfect for it is there that the unique, the authentic, is manifest.  It is there that we see that which makes an individual unique.  I am moved by anything that reminds me of the vulnerability of life and the courage it takes to live."

And I love what Ann Curry says, "Beauty once seemed to me to be an accident of nature... But now that I can see my life on my face-the suffering in my brow, the joy in the tiny crow's feet, the confidence in my eyes-I realize we earn the way we end up looking.  Time, it seems, gives us all a chance to really be beautiful."

One more.  Marcia Gay Harden says, "I try to be beautiful in action and word-it can transform not just the physical (my face or body) but the energy between two people.  Part of beauty is being open to change."

I know I have a whole lot of aging still to come.  In the meantime, I love reminders and wisdom from older women to embrace who I am and to be comfortable with who I will become and to be happy, always. 

My darling husband often tells me he loves my crow's feet around my eyes when I smile.  He thinks my wrinkles are sexy.