The gift of getting old
I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but yet I’ve referenced seeing it every day in the mirror for the last 10 years. It’s a massive fault line that runs between my eyebrows (well, used to, back in the day when I had eyebrows!).
I was contemplating a doozy of a birthday-present-to-self last year … Botox. I was being very sensible about it, not wanting to go overboard with the extras like fillers and collagen that would have me resembling something from the X-Files. Just a little bit (famous last words no doubt).
But I chickened out.
And then the strangest thing happened - I got cancer and that Grand Canyon on my face seemed to disappear.
It’s ok, there’s no hidden side effect from chemo that includes creating wrinkle free zones (although the puffy face from the steroids does help fill in the cracks !). It’s because you see what you focus on. The difference in my face is that I no longer focus on it, therefore I don’t see it. Now my focus has shifted to how many eyelashes I still have left. But I tell you what, my blue eyes seem to stand out a lot more these days!
Lines are experiences, good and bad. A life lived. Loves. Losses. Lessons learned.
For me, that Grand Canyon line used to be just the physical manifestation of a life full of stress/frowning/worrying/thinking too hard about too many things.
But that line is now a proud Harry Potter-style face stamp of accomplishing great things in extreme circumstances in my life. Like living interstate away from my family from the age of 17. Like spending nearly 10 years working while I was trying to complete two university degrees. Like drowning in tears from broken hearts, that were once also great loves. Like busting through 2000 applicants to get my dream job in the criminal justice system when I finally graduated. Like driving through regional Victorian communities devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires, crying silently in sympathy every time I drove those roads or listened to a grieving parent or school principal about children and families that didn’t survive, and asking what I could do to help them. Like bearing witness to the horrors of humanity through child sex abuse, rape, domestic violence, and murder, and carving out a career that would allow me to help them too.
Those stories and faces were the reasons why I worked so damn hard. And now my stress line is my badge of honour. They are reminders that I’ve been a part of greatness. Of great change. That I’ve been around the block a few times. That I have perspectives that I can share through experiences. That I have survived near-drowning in emotions that have shaped my capacity to love, to feel, to fold. And there’s the lines around my eyes and cheeks. Those are from the happiness and the joy every time I’ve giggled or nearly wet my pants laughing from some ridiculous story or movie or joke shared among friends.
So why then would I now set out and erase all of that? (Spoiler alert: I won’t be).
Why do others then? Is it because people don’t want to wear their emotions for others to see? Or to attempt to not feel them at all? To be frozen, emotionless.
In other cultures, lines/wrinkles are a sign of respect, an honour bestowed upon others through experience. It’s wisdom through living. Fears. Failures. Wins.
If all you choose to see are the flaws, that's all you'll ever see. If the concern is that you'll end up on the single shopping shelf without erasing them (in some attempt to look 10 years younger), well, maybe you need to re-think the quality of the potential buyer … And maybe you should also reconsider what your lines represent to you. If there’s only pain, sure, go for the needle or the knife. But remember that there are those who will instead only see the mother of their children. The love of their life. The future potential of a life long partner. A soul connection.
Growing old is a gift that not everyone receives. And yet we tend to fear it and wish it would go and visit someone else. What we forget is that it is a privilege to age, not a punishment.
Now, where others choose to focus on lines or wrinkles, I see life.
And so it’s Happy Birthday to me … this week I’m 41 years young.
