How do you feel about ageing? I of course mean how do you feel about the visible signs of ageing? I am asking because lately I feel that I look my age or dare I say it older than my age. I suppose I must be slightly spoilt as I have always been told and believed although I may not have admitted it that I looked younger than my age. When I was in my early twenties I would be asked for ID occasionally when going to a club. 18 is the minimum age in the UK for drinking alcohol and going into bars and clubs. I can also vividly remember being ID’d in my 30s for buying alcohol in a supermarket which you have to be 25 to do. I wonder why you have to be 25 years old to buy alcohol in a supermarket but you can go to a club and buy it at the age of 18… I digress.
I have been wondering lately if as a woman we can ever feel OK about the ageing process. I would imagine that when I was 15 I would have thought ‘I won’t mind looking old when i’m 40 because 40 is old’ but now that I am there it is not OK as a matter of fact. So now I assume when i’m 80 I will think ‘I won’t mind looking old when i’m 80’ but is that the truth? When i’m 80 will I still feel sad when I see drooping eyelids and a considerably looser jawline or will I think ‘Thats all fine because now I am old’? I highly doubt it. Seriously though I always believed in sayings like ‘Life begins at 40’ so I waited patiently to turn 40, become a Mum and stop caring what I looked like and just focus on my life beginning. As it turns out I feel exactly the same way as I did when I was 20 but with just more loose skin and with more lines on my face.
I like most of us would blame social media to a certain degree as we will all compare ourselves to everyone else we see online, it’s inevitable. All the 40 somethings I see on my feed look more like 30 somethings but could that be thanks to a filter or just good lighting? Or are they having tweakments possibly? Many of the accounts I follow are ‘influencers’ so probably get certain procedures for free or heavily discounted so how are us normal ladies supposed to compete? I found myself wondering recently what I would look like on Instagram if I was 25 now? There are so many improvements in skincare, make up and of course those filters that I can only assume I too would look like one of those glowing sun kissed individuals with perfectly chiselled features and pearly white teeth. When I was 25 there was no such thing (or maybe there actually was but because there was no social media I had not heard of any of it) as double cleansing, contouring, Botox was still just poison, a ring flash was only used by supermodels and eyebrows were non existent. Because of this I now only have embarrassing photos to look back on and reminisce instead of the glamorous selfies young people will look back on when they are my age. But will this make them feel better or worse about turning 40 I wonder?
You may be thinking that I sound vain and shallow, and maybe I do I just wish I had woken up on the 15th December 2021 and not given a damn anymore about my looks, I cannot be the only one that feels this way or am I? That’s worrying! There is a saying that we will have all heard but never realised how true it was until we turned 40 years old and that is ‘Youth is wasted on the young’ Isn’t this the truest thing you ever heard?
Now let me end this post on a more positive note and that is to try and appreciate the way you look today because you will never be as young as you are right now and in 10 years you will look back and the first thought to go through your mind when you see a photo of yourself will be ‘wow I look so young here?!’
Thanks for reading my ramblings and joining me for another exciting episode of Truthful Tuesday.
NJ x
nicola jayne 