Anti-Aging

Anti-aging. What does that mean? I'm against aging? You're against aging. We all are going to fight aging with every breath we take. We will wrest control of aging from...uh...you know, whoever has control of it right now. No. This is not our word. This is a marketing word, a gimmick, trickery. 30-something guys in NY and Paris came up with this word because they work at advertising agencies that sell us the prestige beauty products we buy. How much money do we spend on this war against getting old? Just the anti-aging products alone in the U.S. only are worth $300 billion. How many children will that feed a year? How much healthcare can we afford per annum with that kind of loot? We are practically buried in anti-aging junk hourly. We can ignore it, but we don't. Because the boys in Paris and NY know that the word anti-aging, with enough exposure, causes nostalgia, regret, insecurity, low self-esteem and depression for what used to be; and women are going to cure what causes all that by hauling our credit cards and our butts to the mall. I just chastised a care2 post titled "Embracing Our Sexuality in Middle Age." My hackles got wriggly with the title. How does one exactly embrace one's sexuality? Ugh. Three paragraphs were in quotations, but it wasn't until I got to the 4th paragraph that the author revealed it wasn't her writing, it was Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen. I admire Jean Shinoda Bolen. Jean Shinoda Bolen is a wise woman, who writes about how to be a juicy crone. She is the real deal. Read all her books, and you will grow just by having the ink in front of your eyes. But the lifecoach, when she did start speaking in her own voice in the 4th paragraph, wrote she hates the word crone. Oh, fine. I was already riled, then glanced at the picture care2 put over the article. A woman, maybe over 55, maybe not. She'd either had a little work done, or she was airbrushed the way I altered my picture here. There is nothing real, nothing embracing, nothing authentic or true about this sort of manipulation. Although it was wicked fun to draw. If a woman chooses surgery, photoshop, or that $150 toner she can't live without, that's her business. And the business of the trillion dollar beauty products industry. The beauty products industry wants us to be unhappy with self, to live every day believing our true selves are not the best we can be. I get that. I buy stuff, too. But I do not enjoy the sort of activity-like scrubbing my own face just now-that makes me discontented with getting older. That makes me yearn for the past. That gives me pain. As I final-checked this picture, I thought I should take the ridges out of my nails. Somewhere in the etymology, yearn must share a common root with fool. I am aging. We're all aging at the same speed. My mother used to say consider the alternative. I get that, too. But the fight is to keep aging, not war on aging. No corpse I know owns 7 MAC lipglasses. I'm going to have to find out if MAC calls anything it puts out there anti-aging. Just looked. No anti-aging. MAC is smart. I want smart cosmetics companies that advertise as PRO-aging. Maybe with some 60+ year old women in the marketing and communications department. With titles. Can you imagine? You're a babe, babe! And you're wise, too, because you buy our goo! If that company ever shows up, my wallet will get more of a workout. For now, if I spend my money, it is with companies that honor, respect our age. No money to companies that want us to be unhappy with who we are.