Age on....beautifully! ;-)

Hello and welcome to October! A new day, a new month and it's Friday. Yes! The sun is shining and the weather is comfortably warm..in Atlanta, that is. I think it's rainy in NYC. Everytime I think of October, I think of change. The colors of the leaves changing. The time changing. The fashion--changing. Change. The one thing we can depend on always is...change. 

Change makes me think of aging. I watched Oprah yesterday and she was interviewing Teri Hatcher, remember her from Superman in the 90s (the tv show, that is) and now she's one of the stars on Desperate Housewives. Well, Teri did a really cool thing. She took off her makeup, the "glam," and took snap shots of herself and posted them on the net. She then took it a step further and did a little video of her day from the time she opens her eyes in bed till the time she unwinds at home after a full day of living the life of a mom, TV star, and just a real woman. She said she hoped that her being naked in the bath--without makeup and all--makes women feel a bit better about themselves. I know she's not the first to do this. I remember Oprah did it for her magazine a few years ago, Tyra has done it, Jamie Curtis and maybe more. And each time a woman shows her natural beauty it really does inspire me to do the same! I love it when a woman is strong enough and confident enough in herself to go "bare." The fact is we have so much pressure to look "good" all the time. We are constantly bombarded with products to keep us from aging, wrinkling, gaining weight, shrinking, losing hair, and the list goes on. It's so crazy. We want to live, yet we want to retain the body & face of a 21 year old. In the midst of this never-ending yearning to ANTI-age, we lose the real beauty of growing older. Isn't it a blessing to reach another birthday, gain another year of experiences, lessons and most importantly to get wiser?
One of the saddest things I hear now and then from women over 35 is "I'm old" or "I can't do this now because I'm old." Or I look "old." Or getting old sucks. What disturbs me even more is when I hear such things from women 50 and older. I want to hear the exact opposite from the women I look to for advice, encouragement, and wisdom. It's clear if you look at TV for just 5 minutes how obsessed we are with our looks and how to stay young--on the outside. But, what I've learned it all stems from the inside.

 I grew up a very self-conscious girl. I think it started at around 9 years old when I got my first pair of eyeglasses. I slowly began to hate my eyes, my lips, my skinny legs, my long fingers, my long, frizzy hair and the big glasses didn't help. lol. I went through teen aged years still feeling ugly...until I got a little boost at 15 yrs. old when I finally got contact lenses.
                                                                        Before the dreaded glasses. ;-) @ 7 yrs old.

However, the funny thing is, it would take over 15 more years for me to finally be able to look in the mirror and see beauty and smile at myself and love myself. It wasn't because I got prettier on the outside. It was because I began to value myself and like myself on the inside. And makeup, contact lenses, short hair or long hair can't really do that. I guess what I'm hoping to articulate here is that aging is a beautiful thing. Because with age we gain so much. I know for sure as I age I become more and more comfortable in my skin. I become more at ease with these lips I was born with, these thick eyebrows and hairy arms that got me teased on a little, and this frizzy, thick hair and even my the ever increasing moles I keep discovering each year--hey, aren't those tiny beauty marks, though? :-). As I grow older, my view gets so much clearer. I appreciate all that I am. I don't yearn to look like this person or that one anymore. I am me. I let go of comparing myself, my life, and my thighs to any other person on this earth. I breathe. I understand this is how God created me-perfectly unique-and I'm a work of art! Just like you are too!                                                        

                                                                                     Me and grandma Johnson

So, my gal pals, my aunts, grandmothers, cousins, let's take a vow to embrace aging. (Guys you can too. :-)) They say life begins at 40 anyhoo! and Oprah, Tina Turner, Maya Angelou, Susan Sarandon and I'm sure a lot more women say and know (and make sure that) 50s, 60s and 70s rock! Look, nothing stays the same in this life. Nothing. But that doesn't mean it has to get worse. Age on! In beauty, in light, in laughter and in love!

Sending empowerment your way. Tag you're it!