It Started With My Forearms

I noticed the first signs of aging in my forearms. I saw them in the mirror one day when I was putting on makeup, and I thought to myself, ‘My forearms are starting to look like my mother’s.’

The muscles look different. Slightly saggier. The shape isn’t as youthful as it once was, and I know that it’s not one of those things that can be altered with weight loss or weight lifting. It’s a fundamental change in the shape of a part of my body.

And then I noticed my hands and wrists. I looked at my hands one day and thought, ‘My hands are starting to look like my mother’s.’

Then I saw creases on my neck. And then a shadow line on the right corner of my mouth.

I don’t have too many fine lines yet (sagging runs in my family more than fine lines), and my gray hair makes a silver crown, which I rather like. Until I don’t, and then I make an appointment with my hair girl, Lauren.

Up until just a few years ago, I didn’t think I would age. I was one of those women—the ones who think they’ll be spared the effects of time and hormonal changes. I would be forever young. If only everyone had started intense skin care routines when they were in their teens, then they, too, could be ageless.

It’s embarrassing that I thought this way. My vanity is embarrassing. I repent of it all.

When I see young women whose skin and hair and forearms have not suffered the fate of time on their physical bodies, I feel a twinge of sadness. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t lament the loss of youth, at least the physical parts. But I know as a forty-something woman, I must pass the torch of beauty and vitality to the next generation of women. I had my turn. I’ve entered the season where women hear, “You look great for your age.”

For your age. Gah. Might as well put a dagger through my heart.

I’m being dramatic, but there is a real resignation you must do as a woman who is, in fact, aging. If you don’t, you will go mad, and the next thing you know your face will be full of fillers and you’ll be trying to wear clothes that only women under 30 should be wearing and posting inappropriate pics on Insta.

To be clear, I don’t think the physical aging process should rob women of their whimsy; if anything she should lean hard into the enchanted parts of herself, the creative parts, and live. I think the creativity that can come after youth has the potential to be deeper and richer than anything that might have been produced by a 20 year old.

I don’t have to tell you that your mortal flesh will die—that your body will deteriorate and it will fail to give you confidence in your beauty at some point in your life. And I don’t have to tell you that it’s all the more reason to beautify the part that lives forever. But maybe it helps to hear it (it helps me to say it).

What am I trying to say? I’m trying to say that “your heart and flesh may fail” (it will fail), but there’s so much more ahead than you leave behind when it comes to your vanity. And the beauty of youth that fades becomes a different kind of beauty that you grow to love and embrace. Letting go of the beauty of your youth is a way of letting go of this world for the world to come.

And heaven knows if I can do this, you can, too—when the time comes, if it hasn’t already. And when it does, you can use those forearms to pass the torch.