Wrinkles, Lines and thickness

Balloon Venus: Jeff Koons

I just read a short article on MBG posted by a good friend on Facebook about a young woman who just turned 33 and is happy to be "Single and Poor."

Please note, I have an unconventional background and upbringing so I often relate to things like getting older as a woman in odd and unconventional ways.

I have been familiar with the indicators of age in women as seen through media for as long as I could understand language. The first gray hairs, crows feet (I think of Maddie Hayes in Moonlighting and her aging ex-model journey into the career of private detective) lines and wrinkles. I'm well aware of the signs. But I have never looked for them or been paranoid about them. I don't remember how old I was when I noticed my first gray hair and I never made an occasion of it. They were there and I just kind of went along with life. Of course I don't have them now because they're colored. HA!

When I read this article the "wrinkles and lines" line popped out at me and joined a heap of other similar or identical observations women have made about aging in magazines, movies, television conversation, etc. It occurred to me once again that I've never checked my reflection for any of these things and definitely not when I was 33. But then again, when I was 33, I was in a steady committed relationship and engaged to be married.

I was having dinner with a good friend, her partner and her mother this weekend. She asked me how married life was and said she wished my husband had a brother she could set up with her daughter because she loves my husband so much. I was amazed. Her daughter is gorgeous, accomplished, gainfully employed, funny, smart, all pluses in my mind. I asked all sorts of questions, what was she looking for in a man, what did she like, how old was she. Her grandmother said she was "getting up there." She is 33 years old. I sort of laughed because I wanted to believe that she was joking but the more I've thought about it since and after reading this article I'm starting to realize that for women, particularly unattached young women, 33 is old! And I know that the pool of available suitable men in your 30s start to vary in restrictive ways across cultural lines in very different ways.

Now when I say I don't check for wrinkles and lines, that doesn't mean I'm not obsessive about other parts of my body. I'm an ex-skinny chick in a body that is presently thicker and heavier than what I'm used to and comfortable with and it's a constant challenge for me. I have to come up with strategic ways to get the voice of the weight scale out of my mind. I no longer eat things I love with total abandon the way I did in college. I am mostly always worried about what I put in my mouth is doing to me. But that hasn't so much to do with aging as just general appearance and confidence level. Would I be checking for wrinkles and lines if I was single? Maybe. It makes sense that age becomes more of an issue for women when they are single and looking because we're freaking youth obsessed and feel like we have to look eternally 20ish to pull the right guys or any guy in some cases

I was having this conversation last night with my Soul Sister over at Life as I know it  about the negative reactions among black men to the leaked images of Jill Scott's naked body as she was photographing herself in her bathroom mirror. I was frankly shocked because I think she looks sexy as hell and it's always been my impression that Black men love sisters with some roundness, thickness and voluptuousity (yeah I made that up) so I was surprised and disappointed to read that they were coming down so hard on her body type because she didn't fit a standard more ascribed mostly to the bodies of white women. When the hell did that happen? *SIGH*

To me, roundness is feminine and bountiful and sustained extreme skinniness is a deprivation. That's just me. I also feel like our obsession with youth is a constant set up for failure because youth by default does not last. The only youth that lasts lives in the spirit of how we live, think and act. But the visual indicators of youth are what sell as an idea. And again, in a capitalist society, what sells is what gets attention. So we have women going under the knife, getting botox, implants and plastic surgery to stop the hands of time and create a mask. We have beautiful, thick, round, voluptuous beautiful woman who walk around thinking they need to fit a size 2 before they can pick their heads up and walk proudly and the ones who do walk proudly and live out line are seen as exceptions. As women, our bodies change because they are supposed to. We accommodate so many changes and transformations within our bodies that it's like we live several lifetimes in one.

I'm no shining example of acceptance of all of these changes. It's always a adjustment when our bodies change from one form to another. But I do believe the essence of beauty lies in energy and attitude and the way which we represent these things in our appearance. Even when I was a beanpole I was not confident about the way I looked. In my pre-teens, I was awkward and deflective about my body at best. If I got the body I thought I wanted tomorrow, it would be yet another adjustment, that's why healthy change. especially with regards to our bodies happens in increments not instantaneously. It's also why babies don't go from age 1 to 15 overnight. Think of the trauma that would involve for everyone.But we're in an age when self inflicted trauma has become a daily pastime. More on that later.