I’m 49.
And three weeks.
And one day.
I’m not old, and everything is relative, right?
But it’s becoming ever apparent to me that I’m not a shiny new penny either.
Nora Ephron wrote a book called, I Feel Bad About My Neck. I must concede, I have had days
where I felt better about my neck and about a few other body parts too. And I’m not entirely sure what to do with all these changes I keep seeing in the mirror.
It’s not like my body was ever perfect – very few people actually have perfect bodies. Some people do. And you know what I tell those people?
Get naked.
No, really. Get naked. You have just about ten minutes before everything goes south. Carpe diem, right?
Ten minutes was about all I ever had in that fleeting space between being a lanky celery stalk and the perfect pear I am now.
Ten.
Whole.
Minutes.
I’ll spare you the line-item inventory of all my wiggling and jiggling parts, but suffice to say, moisturize your neck and hands and start when you’re seven. Men, that goes for you too.
And here’s what I’ll also say:
Know who you are in that eleventh minute.
After your ten minutes of looking like a god or goddess expires, know who you really are and embrace the hot menopausal (or MANopausal) mess that you are. You know why? Because it’s really rather helpful to those who are right behind us.
This is why every Friday, my 7th graders and I celebrate No Make-Up Friday. None of us wear make-up on Fridays. Yes, I have 12-year-olds that come in looking like they just came away from the Mac counter at JC Penney’s wearing full-on foundation, eyeliner, lipstick and all the fixins. I walk into my classroom and announce, “No Make-Up Friday! Ladies?”
In unison my girls call out, “MY BEAUTY IS NOT MEASURED BY MASCARA!”
I say, “Gentlemen?”
And my boys yell, “Si, Mon!” which basically means, “Yes, man!” or “Agreed!” or “Of course, dude!”
Are they adorable or what?
There are a lot of voices out there in the world that tell my kids they have to look a certain way to be valuable and worthy. I want to be a strong, powerful, authoritative female voice in their heads that lets them know they are valuable and worthy apart from the layers of shellac and the layers of opinion and the layers of expectations and judgment and insecurity they carry around with them on a daily basis.
We have to model confidence and layer our children and friends and family and neighbors and even strangers with faith in themselves that extends beyond – even in the midst of our bodies that are succumbing to that inevitable gravity that reminds us that our time on this earth is temporary.
Let’s grow old gracefully, y’all. The younger ones are watching…
Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. She lives with her husband, Sean-Martin, in the beautiful state of Idaho and teaches English and Literature during the school year to the best 7th graders the world over. Daisy spends her summers writing, speaking, researching, creating, gardening, and canning.
Hope Givers: Hope is Here, is the sequel, of sorts, to her comedic, spiritual memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, which was her publisher's (Christopher Matthews) #1 top selling book in 2012. She has also written a free e-book for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You, which appears in its entirety in Hope Givers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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