Have you stumbled across that moment yet? The moment you realise you look old. Or, if not actually old, older. Or, at the very least, approaching middle age.
Because you are old. Or older. But your brain hasn’t quite caught up with the rate of decline of your body and still somehow thinks it’s 25. Because, in reality, aren’t we all just in a wee bit of denial?
That is, until it suddenly hits you slap in the face and you realise that the young woman, the “girl”, the “your best self”, is well and truly gone and has been replaced by an older model. And while the “use by” date may still be many decades off, the “best before” date has expired without you really noticing.
That moment came for me a couple of months ago. I had the entirely surreal experience of seeing myself on the telly, and wondering who that middle-aged woman was. And then the penny dropped. “Oh, good Jesus, that is me.”
Photographs capture a particular moment. Your mirror typically reflects your expressionless face back at you. But the telly captures you in full flight, warts and all, your face all furrows and creases and lines from the wear and tear of life; once peachy, now worn and torn. And I found myself wondering, will I attempt to stop the clock and take pre-emptive action, as more and more women of my age appear to be doing? Or am I strong enough to accept this inevitable decline, and take it in my stride? Will I have enough confidence in myself – as a person, as an individual, as a (not so) young woman – to hold my own, without feeling the need to erase the years, the experiences and all that life I’ve so very much lived?
I hate the lines that have made their home across my forehead over the course of the past decade, and bred like rabbits to the extent that, by now, they resemble a set of overhead lines. Or a piece of sheet music. Four or five very definite parallel lines, that all but speak to me every time I look in the mirror. One for every decade.
White roots
Recently, I became ill. It was straight after having put off a much-needed trip to the hairdresser. And during my convalescence, my roots took on a whole new life of their own; they were all I could see every time I crawled passed the bathroom mirror.
Granted, I was already below par but oh, how those white roots bothered me. The mere sight of them made me feel old. Washed out. Dulled. That inch of undiluted age creeping down my parting, a growing testament to how used up, washed out and drained of life and colour I was feeling.
Then I got better, and I finally made it to the hairdresser. And the psychological lift that simple “colouring-in” gave me was incredible. I walked in feeling old, and I walked out feeling renewed. I was back, without the big white line as obvious as a road marking.
And it inevitably got me thinking, what could a similar “touching-up” to my face do for my frame of mind? It was like painting part of a room, and highlighting the shabbiness of the remainder. My furrowed brow and the new triangles in the area between my upper lip and my nose just became all the more obvious.
It had been on my mind since I had attended an annual gathering of old friends and one, in particular, stood out to me as not only having not aged, but as looking actively younger. It’s not as if I’m not used to the ageing process. I went grey in my early 20s, and while others debated shades of blonde versus copper, I already had the boot polish out. So if I haven’t got the guts to be transparent about my hair, perhaps I can’t quite learn to live with these increasing lines either.
Modest acceptance
My mother aged gracefully, with dignity, and a quiet, modest acceptance of what in her day and age was considered to be an inevitable
process. Silver-haired and elegant, she was entirely comfortable in her own skin. Had someone suggested to her that she consider injecting a poison into her face, I suspect she may have suggested they see a doctor.
But if I allow myself to accept that I inhabit an entirely different space and time to the 1980s Ireland my mother occupied, how do I decide what is right for me? If one of the many “interventions” now available can provide me with a “lift”, what’s so wrong with that? If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. Right?
But then I had an encounter that changed my view entirely. I was in a department store, ogling bags I can ill afford, when I noticed a woman whose face rendered me speechless. As impolite as I may have appeared, I stared. Quite simply, I couldn’t not.
I was strangely fascinated by the texture and tone of her skin. It was very obvious that something, or someone, had “interfered”. And while, yes, her skin looked smooth and flawless, as if someone had taken an iron to it, there was also something unsettling about the sheer perfection of that face. It took me a minute to figure it out, and then it hit me.
Her face looked dead; devoid of expression, uniqueness and life. She wore a paralysing mask that concealed not just her age but her personality.
What’s the point of looking younger if you lose your individuality, a fundamental part of yourself in the process? What if the pursuit of perfection leads to a blank canvas with nothing to say for itself? What could possibly be appealing and attractive about that?
How can I teach my young daughter that she is worth more than the sum of her physical attributes if I can’t even make peace with my own?
So instead of taking drastic evasive action, I have discovered the joys of primer: Polyfilla for faces. On the rare occasion that I manage a decent go at my make-up, it gives me the illusion of youth. And for now, at least, that’s enough. I’ll just have to take a deep breath, and give myself a pep talk the next time I am “lapped” by one of my peers.
And I’ll think of the Waxwork Lady. Because no one wants to look patently in denial: it just demonstrates to the world that you’re unhappy in your own skin. And I think most of us would prefer to keep those kinds of inner insecurities under wraps.