The Liberation of Aging

I am getting older and as any older person can tell you it's quite common to get to a point in your life when you reassess some of the things you have done all your life and finally you say "Why am I doing this?". I Have what a lot of older people have which is a condition whereby my eyes are continually dry. I also have slightly darker skin under my eyes than the rest of my face, which is a family trait. I have for more years than I can count worn cover stick (makeup for under the eyes for you guys out there who are not up on your makeup terminology) and in the last two or three years, I've found that my eyes are sensitive to it and get irritated and even dryer.

Last week I shook off that last holdout of feminine vanity and forsook the cover stick which was the last vestige of makeup I was still wearing. It was liberating. Although I'm not ready to stop wearing a bra in public or stop bathing and washing my hair, I found that nobody ran away from me in horror or stared because I was not wearing cover stick. In fact, I don't look that much different without it unless I've been deprived of sleep for 24 hours, in which case I do look like I have gone a couple of rounds with Mohamed Ali.

The older I get, the less I care what the outside world thinks about me and I'm finding it exhilarating. I have nothing bad to say about older ladies who wear a tasteful amount of makeup, but I see far too many women in their 60s and 70s piling it on thicker every year making a person afraid to give them a kiss on the cheek or a cheek to cheek hug for fear of having to shower afterward. We will not discuss in detail the look of base makeup and powder accumulation in wrinkles (shudder).

Too many "mature" ladies are trying to hold onto their youth and to appear attractive to the opposite sex. I think what they don't realize is if a mature man is attracted to you it has nothing to do with your face (or very little anyway).

My husband has not noticed any difference in my appearance, and, indeed, I've worn less and less makeup every year until last week when I finally started going facially "naked".

Now you many think this blog entry is kind of silly and unimportant in the grander scheme of things, and you would be partly right, but just stop and think for a minute about the stuff that controls you instead of the stuff you control.

I no longer worry about what people think of me when I lie down on the boardwalk by the river in town to take a photo of a dew-draped spider web in fog along the railing.

And I do it now with a naked face.