I’m sure you’ve seen Renee Zellweger’s new look by now. I hate to say it, but I miss your old look, Renee!
That second picture is only a year old…I think she’s had work done.
I get it. I’m a year older than Renee. While I don’t make my money from my face (a good thing!), I’m just like every woman. I watch the lines creep in, the fullness where it wasn’t before, the sag in another place. And it isn’t always fun or easy. But it has to happen.
I’ve realized you wear your life on your face.
I’m not anti-injectables! I think Botox has it’s place in delaying the inevitable. Heck, I even used it a few times in my late 30s and early 40s. I knew those lines were coming, but I just wanted to put them off for a year or so. I knew they had to come eventually. Nobody hits fifty unscathed.
Those laugh lines? They come from laughing.
The worry line, right there between the eyes? (Ugh, and the ones around my eyebrows?) They come from loving some people and caring about them and worrying about them!
The freckles and sun damage? In spite of all the sunscreen, they bear witness to the hours at the lake and the farm with my people.
And it would either be unnatural or really, really sad to get to my age and not have that experience to wear on my face.
When I think of the women I most want to be when I’m 65 or 70, I don’t think of Joan Rivers. I think of my grandmother, my mom, my aunts. Dear ladies at church who are gorgeous and loving and happy. And I don’t see how I get to that beauty with frequent stops at the plastic surgeon.
Well-maintained, however, is another matter altogether! Facials, a good diet and exercise–they are all important. It seems to me that just as important as those is loving the people in my life.
I do have a confession, though. When I was little I hit my nose on the very hard head of Jane my neighbor while we were running through the sprinkler. I don’t know if I broke it then, but the lump remains. Since cartilage keeps growing even as I age, my nose has gotten a little more crooked over the years. I do think about getting that straightened out…
What about you? What do you think about Renee’s new look? And what do you think about your own looks as you age?
**One of my fellow 31-dayers is posting a fun series on beauty and aging. You should check it out!
Reading about all of this and seeing the pictures of her just made me so sad…. even the most successful people feel they need to LOOK a certain way to be happy. You are right — we wear our lives on our face. I would love to get rid of my deep frown lines on my brow, but I realize that has come from a lifetimes of inquisitiveness — I’m enjoying reading your blog, Cheryl – always something different and informative!