Recently, I discovered the magical power of rainbow-colored hair, and I defy someone telling me I'm too old to have it. And I can't imagine doing something to get rid of them. The lines running across my forehead mimic those of my father's. We treat women like the newest release of the iPhone: just wait a minute, because we've got a hot newer model coming, and she's so much sexier than your old one that we've made the old model obsolete. The fear of being seen as anything less than sexually viable, the palpable threat of being traded in for a younger model, the intense messaging that we're going to die alone if we show a crack in the armor of our skin - all of it is crushing, pervasive, and punishing. Every day, I watch women battling time with everything they've got, attempting to stay in the same jeans from high school while pushing foreign matter into their faces in order to literally freeze everything right where it is today, forever and ever more. Entire magazines dedicated to "The Age Issue." Intense media scrutiny on the appearance of every woman in the public eye, as parodied by Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and others in " Last F*ckable Day." And the beauty business wages a full-scale war on time, complete with antiaging weaponry meant to eradicate, decimate, and bury all evidence that a woman might be getting older, like " age-defying lasers" and " miracle worker" eye creams. Our societal thirst for youth is undeniable. The catalyst makes us feel suddenly shamed and expendable. It's almost as if we have invisible expiration dates on our skin, and any sign of wear and tear sets off an alarm. What makes this well-meaning compliment so unsettling is it implies there's something wrong with looking middle-aged or older. It seems after a certain age, "You don't look your age!" is supposed to be the Mother of All Compliments, feathered in a soft nest of "I would never have guessed!" and "OMG, are you serious?" While I appreciate the flattery, I'm always left with a very uneasy feeling: what does that say about how we feel about women and aging? I know he meant it as a sincere compliment, but I'm troubled by the concept that somehow I'm winning at life because I don't have more visible, external signs of aging. I pointed out that I'm actually in my mid-forties (I'll be 45 in June), at which the driver abruptly adjusted the rearview mirror with shock and said, "There is NO WAY you're that old! You don't look your age!" As the conversation continued around politics, he made an assumption that we were close in age, saying as someone in her late twenties/early thirties, surely I could relate. Last week, I struck up a conversation with my Uber driver.
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