Truth, Beauty, and Mirrors

I have never been a raving beauty. Oh, I've had my time in the sun - the wolf whistles, the double-entendres, the outright compliments of my hips, my smile, my blah, blah, blah. So while I was never beautiful in the classic sense, I guess I was "attractive" like my mother said when as a teen I asked her if I was pretty. An honest woman was my mother. When she said, "You are attractive," I saw the neon sign, its garish colors broadcasting, "You are not pretty, not beautiful, not, not, not. You will never have a boyfriend. You will never be Homecoming Queen. Never, never, never." Of course I was about 14 at the time, dangerously hyperbolic when considering my worth. And what girl is beautiful at 14, the supremely awkward stage of a girl's life? Maybe Sophia Loren was gorgeous at 14 as she still is at 66.

But Sophia is the exception. Most of us gradually lose the youthful beauty we once had as the years erase the luster and replace it with wrinkles, sagging skin, warts, and facial hair. Good bone structure of the face may disguise the process, but we all get to the point where, as a friend of mine said years ago, "You need to have a great personality or a great job to get any attention. You can't depend on beauty anymore to open those doors and get those cabs." Or as Bette Davis said, "Old age ain't for sissies."

I've been thinking about those women who get a zillion plastic surgeries. Not the young ones - them I cannot fathom. The older women who are resculpting their faces and bodies in desperate attempts to remain beautiful, young, desirable. I understand the urge, but since I was never so beautiful that I turned the heads of all the men in the room, I do not suffer from quite the identity crisis the lovely ones must be going through. My honest mother told me that accomplishments, ability, generosity of spirit, depth of character were more important than beauty. She said that beauty will fade and if beauty made up all your worth as a person, you weren't going to have anything to stand on when your looks went. And they would go. Doesn't it kill you when Mom is so right?

Have you ever looked at pictures of your mother or grandmother or aunt when they were about 20 or 30? So young and pretty that they take your breath away. Where did those looks go? You may be able to see remnants in the eyes, or the cheeks now, but those pictures are proof that they once had sparkle, beauty, youthfulness. Depending on how old you are, you may hope and pray that you will escape this fading of your looks, but I have become realistic. Without plastic surgery, which I will never have, my eyelids droop, my neck wrinkles need to be covered by turtlenecks, my laugh lines do not smooth out when I am not smiling. And my hair is all gray. I do not look in mirrors as much as I used to. That helps some.

I have noticed that for some people, I do not really exist. Obviously I am not in the dating or baby-making market; nor am I their boss; therefore, I am uninteresting unless I am spending money in their store. Good thing I don't need their validation, but it is annoying when it happens. So now I have to know my own worth by what I've done and what I do, how I treat others, who I love and who I am. Good thing I didn't depend on my beauty to get me through life, but it is sad to see what looks I did have on their way out. Bye, bye, so long, farewell forever, youth and beauty. At least I still have the pictures.

Sylvia Plath says it well.
Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.