Age before Beauty

Today is my birthday and I turn 30. It's always interesting when my birthday rolls around. I don't feel 30, at least not in the typical sense. My life is established far beyond that of a typical 30 year old. I have two kids ages 10 and 7. My husband and I have been together for 14 years, that's nearly half my life. As a young family, we've had a crazy life changing crisis and many more mini life altering circumstances since. It's been a wild ride and I'm still looked at as a young 'un, still wet behind the ears.




Many people still treat me like I am a new mom or new wife. Last year when I told a group of moms my age they laughed. "Oh yeah, I'm 29 too," one said as if she didn't believe me. She acted as if I was pretending to be 29, like women do when they don't want to admit their real age. I have never lied about my age. I don't worry about getting older. I embrace it. I find grey hairs, have for a long time. No big deal.

I recently watched a movie called The Countess, a German film about the infamous Elizabeth Bathory who reportedly killed young virgin girls and bathed in their blood. It was in an effort to sustain her youthful beauty. Traumatized by the apparent desertion of her lover for a younger woman, Elizabeth became obsessed with looking young and would do anything to achieve the life long appearance of youth. She was said to have killed up to 600 girls but was only called up on charges for 80 of them. She is an extreme example of the female obsession with youth and beauty, a phenomenon that still continues in this modern age.



Today women go to great lengths to preserve their youthful look. Plastic surgery, Botox and lypo-suction are some of the greater extremes women of the modern age will go to to achieve long lasting youth. As a western culture we are obsessed with the numbers of our age, the laugh lines on our face and the number of grey hairs we have. We obsess over the numbers on the scale, the numbers that indicate the size of our pants and the number of friends on our Facebook account. These obsessions only serve to distract us from our lives, never allowing us to truly live it. We are so obsessed with growing old, we fail to see how truly youthful we are.

I hope I never become so preoccupied with growing old that I forget to live. I hope that the youthful acceptance I have today will remain with me for the rest of my days. As each year passes, may I always see the blessing that new age presents. May I always see the real beauty in being young at heart.