This is not a “wah wah, poor me” post, just an observation on life and things. I’ve just had new headshots taken because of new hair, and I’m going through them looking at my face and asking “When did I get so old?” It’s not that I’m old, not at all, but I don’t feel the way my face looks. There are crinkles and lines and crepe-iness that I don’t feel old enough to have. I am blessed with very good skin, and I look after it fairly well, but there’s no stopping the ageing process. There’s no reversing of gravity, preventing of folds or ceasing of smiling, frowning, laughing, grimacing – all the things that have an effect on the face. And other than drastic surgery, there’s no changing what already exists on the face. That’s a very sobering thought.

We – I – live in a society that reveres youth. Beauty goes hand in hand with youth, and although I’ve never considered myself to be conventionally beautiful, I’ve felt that I’ve grown more attractive the older I’ve gotten due to my acceptance of self, and the fact that I behave like a child 80% of the time. Older certainly doesn’t equal ugly as far as I’m concerned, but it interests me to look at photos of myself, or to look in the mirror and have that slight sense of panic that my face isn’t smooth plains of creamy unblemished goodness, and that somehow that diminishes my worth (particularly in the acting industry), or means that I’ve failed as a woman.

Heather
Acidtongue and Dollface
Photography by Alexandra Dye

How ridiculous! How stupidly, profoundly, contemptibly ridiculous. I resent being conditioned to feel like that. I resent buying into that bullshit as if it’s a true measure of who I am as a human being. I stand up in the face of that ludicrous societal standard of beauty and acceptability and I laugh! I love my wrinkles (that I slather cream on every night to reduce)! I love my tuck-shop-lady arms (that I do repetitive, pointless exercise to try to get rid of) ! I love my grey hairs (that I cover up with artificial colour)!

Oh gods, I’m such a hypocrite. Because I can say all that, and rant and rave to the four winds, but I will guarantee you within the next 24 hours I will be in front of the mirror examining my pores and inwardly sobbing over my rotund abdomen and judging myself because I don’t fit the media/society-dictated norm. I don’t even find that norm particularly attractive, but I want to fit it.

Humans are stupid sometimes.

Getting Older