Midlife: A Time of Contradiction

Reflecting on how I feel on the inside compared to how I see myself on the outside.

I’ve come to realize that my forties are a time of contradiction.

How I feel about myself and how I see myself are not aligned.

There’s so much said out there about how once you hit your forties you stop giving a shit about what other people think. You are more “you” than you’ve ever been before. It’s freeing and exciting and something to revel in.

Sure, I can see that. There are parts of me that agree.

And excluding the fact that I am battling the various emotional and physical effects of peri-menopause, which is a separate discussion, I do feel confident about who I am overall.

However.

And this is really scary for me to write because I don’t want to come across as vain but instead I want to be seen as someone who cares little about what is considered by society to be beautiful. I want to be seen as “above” that.

But I’m not.

So here goes…

As I get deeper into my forties I feel more and more of a contradiction between the internal confidence I have about who I am on the inside - my intelligence and decisions and opinions and outspokenness- and the lack of confidence about who I am on the outside - the physical effects of aging I see every time I look in the mirror.

I cannot help but to reflect on my changing body— the rounder parts, the sagging parts, the grayer parts, the duller parts.

And I care.

I care that I’m rounder.

I care that I’m grayer.

I care that I’m wrinkly-er.

I care that I’m softer.

I care that I’m saggy-er.

I wish I didn’t care. I wish I was above it all.

I wish I could make statements like: It’s so wonderful to live my life free from the male gaze and the over-sexualization of the female body.

But honestly — and shit this is so difficult to write— honestly I miss feeling pretty and desirable.

I miss knowing I look good.

As I write this I’m cringing.

I really don’t even know if I’ll publish this because who the hell wants to admit to this?

The thing is, I can’t stop comparing myself now to myself before.

I was prettier before. I was younger before.

But I am no longer that person and that’s really difficult to accept.

Am I losing you with this one? Are you judging me? It’s ok, I understand.

So many of my friends seem confident about their appearances. Actually, I’ve never talked to any of them about this stuff before, which means one of two things.

Either they truly don’t have these feelings and are above this kind of superficial bullshit.

Or they too feel like too much of a feminist to bring this up.

I’m not really sure what to do to change this because I know that the way I look to others doesn’t really matter.

I know that I have so much more to offer than what I look like.

I know that thinking like this drains my energy and creativity and ability to put myself out there in all the ways that I want to be.

But knowing all this hasn’t changed anything.

I still get sad when I think about how quickly I seem to be changing on the outside and how much I wish it wasn’t happening.

I’ve noticed that people make statements about others along the lines of “she looks great for her age” or “she’s really fit”, which seem like compliments.

But when you think about it, if those things are compliments, then by default the opposite of those things are insults.

To look one’s age or to not be slim become bad things.

Even hearing these types of “compliments” about myself is probably having a negative impact on my emotional health.

I hear often that I “don’t look 43", which seems like a nice to thing to say except what happens when I do look 43? Or 48? Or 52? That’s bad, right?

This is the part where I’m supposed to have some insightful wisdom about how to move past this. But I don’t. I don’t know how to change this.

If you do, please tell me.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll keep plugging along, doing my best to remind myself that my looks are not what defines me and hoping that eventually it will sink in.