For Decades, I Fought to Do This — At All Costs

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At a recent doctor’s visit, the nurse had just finished doing the usual intake of weight, height, blood pressure and questions about my life, like “Are you depressed?” As she headed to the door, she said, “By the way, you don’t look your age! You look much younger.”

I have heard this before, and at 84, I knew it was a compliment, yet it made me nervous. Exactly how much younger did she think I looked? A little? A lot? 82? 73? Being raised to believe that looking good was crucial to a woman’s happiness, I felt the unspoken but implied rest of it: if you don’t look as young as you do, you will look your age.

My beauty regimen began early, at the age of 10. This was when, to stop my baby blonde hair from becoming darker, my mother leaned me back over the sink and applied a stinging mix of peroxide and ammonia to bleach my locks.

For my 13th birthday, I had my first mom-directed plastic surgery. My ears, which poked through my straight hair, got “pinned back." But an overgrowth of scar tissue pushed them out again, and I had to have the surgery a second time. For years, I wore my hair teased up and long enough to cover my prominent ears.

By 16, I was convinced that if I wanted boys to ask me on dates, I needed a nose job, which meant another plastic surgery. So what started at 10 under my mother’s hair care became my own constant vigilance about keeping myself pretty, always, at all costs.

I am aware that my mother sounds like something out of “Mommy Dearest” but her actions were guided by the common belief in the 1940s and 1950s that the secret to a woman’s appeal, even success, was to be beautiful. In my book Finishing Up: On Aging and Ageism, I call it a “cultural cage," a cage that we are bound by depending on the mores and beliefs of the times in which we are born. My first rebellion against my own personal beauty war was when I loosened my hairstyle to a more natural look,

But I was still a prisoner of dying my roots, keeping it blond, and paying big bucks for haircuts that appeared natural as if the strands just happened to fall that way.

For decades I waged this secret war between myself and myself, and the battleground was my mirror. In my head, I knew that my epitaph was not going to be “What a nose!” or “Her hair was a perfect shade of blonde,” but my heart yearned to be never-less-than-beautiful-at-all-times.

The truth is, we still live in a world where beauty and youth are honored and rewarded, especially for women. And we all hear “You don’t look your age," as if looking our age is not a good look. So, how, in the midst of this, does a woman overcome her early cultural indoctrination, and accept who she sees in the mirror, especially at 60, 70, 80?

How did I?

I asked myself what the color of my hair had to do with a happy marriage that lasted 59 years. Do my friends shun me when I have a bad hair day? In fact, do any of my loved ones care (or even notice) how I look, rather than how I make them feel loved?

Eventually, I felt a shift in my thinking and an ease. Now, what I do, I do for me.

Sure, I know looking good has a real effect on how we fare in life, and I want to look my best, too. However, my beauty regimen these days is simple: a touch of blush on my cheeks, and a bit of color on my lips. I now wear my hair short, so my big ears show, and I never leave home without earrings.

My mother, who died just short of her 100^th birthday, colored her hair until she was 98, and had manicures until her last days. At the age of 77, I stopped the hair dye and I was relieved that the gray came in so well that people asked me who does my highlights.

I don’t judge you, but I will never consider surgical procedures, having been there, and done that, long ago. I know my age is my age, and no tuck or “filler” will change it.

When I look in the mirror today, I laugh and my whole face joins in. My eyes narrow, the tip of my fixed nose points down and my upper lip goes up. Not pretty. Not old or young. Just me, at 84. So, if you are also deep into your golden years, use your mirror to confirm that you are alive! Or don’t use it at all.

Whatever you do, do it for you!