The Courage to Age
You mean my face won't stay the exact same forever?
Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been attempting to write this blog post since last winter?
Ever since I wrote Living Life Without a Full Length Mirror, which examined all my preconceived notions of body image, I’ve been trying to pull out my emotions and wrap words around the taboo topic of aging. But each time I go to write, I freeze. There’s so much I want to say. There’s a thousand and one ways to start.
So let me start with this — two distinct memories from my life, sixteen years apart.
Memory 1: July 2007
It’s the eve of my thirteenth birthday. It’s late at night and I’m standing in the basement bathroom of my aunt and uncle’s house, staring at myself in the mirror.
The past few years, my cousin Megan traveled from Kentucky and I traveled from Pennsylvania to spend a week with my aunt, uncle, and their two young children in Virginia. Megan and I spend the week helping babysit our toddler cousins, which consists of trips to the pool, board games galore, watching movies, cooking new meals, and sometimes even sleeping out on the deck in a tent. It also consists of Megan and I getting the chance to experience some independence for the first time, miles away from our immediate families. (Our version of independence at this age looked like us speed-reading romance books, wondering out loud to each other when we’ll finally get our periods, and gossiping incessantly about our 12-year-old crushes as if they were The One).
Back to the bathroom. Back to the mirror.
I lean forward, delicately running a finger over a small, red bump on my forehead. Could it be…?
“MEEEEEGAAAAAN!” I yell, bolting out of the bathroom into the far end of the basement where the guest bed is. Megan sets down her probably-inappropriate-for-a-pre-teen romance novel and stares at me with her big blue eyes.
“What?”
“A pimple!” I say, pointing to the dot with a grin.
“… What?”
That’s right. I, Paige Gardner, on the eve of my thirteenth birthday, have received my very first pimple. Surely this means my period is coming. Surely this means I’m getting older. I’m a true teenager.
I feel wise beyond my years. Megan, who doesn’t turn thirteen for another month and has baby smooth skin, couldn’t possibly understand.
Memory 2: May 2023
My husband and I sneak away to Cape May for the weekend. I have wrapped up my Master’s program, submitting all my final projects, and while my graduation ceremony isn’t for another couple weeks, it feels like the first time in three years I can finally breathe. I’m proud of myself, and grateful to have a husband who wants to celebrate me with an early trip to the beach. A weekend on the cusp of summer.
As we get ready for dinner one night, I put my makeup on in the hotel bathroom. I stand there for a moment, staring at myself. Staring, specifically, at my forehead. Could it be…?
My very first wrinkle.
I don’t call out my husband’s name and skip out to point at my forehead and share the news at the top of my lungs. The horizontal line, visible from even five feet away, tells me I’m getting older. This time, I don’t welcome that knowledge.
No, instead I spend the next few weeks frantically reviewing all pictures of me from the last few years. In each of them I see the line on my forehead — in each of them, I can’t see anything except the line. How have I missed it all this time? When did it arrive? When will the others come? What can I do to stop them?
I wish I could say that I quickly embraced that horizontal line etched into my forehead, realizing that every normal human being — if they’re lucky — gets the privilege to watch their face change over time. To watch their skin go from smooth to pimply to wrinkly. (“Hey Siri, play ‘The Circle of Life’ from The Lion King.” 🎶🎶🎶)
This was not the case, although I was acutely aware how ridiculous it was to freak out over ONE LONE WRINKLE on your forehead. The future will bring more. If I didn’t learn to befriend this one, I was in for a lifetime of trouble.
On the path towards accepting the physical evidence of my aging, I first turned to the internet for help.
Sometimes I come across a problem that makes me feel like I’m floating alone in the middle of the ocean, cloaked by thick darkness from the starless night, with no human around who could ever understand what I’m feeling. In those moments, I like to (don’t laugh at me) search that specific problem on Reddit. Without fail, I find thread after thread of others who are going through the exact same problem. It’s like suddenly the sun rises over the horizon and I notice hundreds of rafts floating alongside me.
However, in this case, whenever I searched for something about being self-conscious about wrinkles, or having difficulty with my aging face, I was flooded with responses for Botox.1 I read so many of those responses that I actually started to believe that I was the only women in their 20s who had yet to have Botox! The sun rose on that particular day to reveal hundred of rafts carrying doctors in white coats with syringes pointed in my direction.
Terrified, I turned to friends for solace next. When I was back in the U.S. during the holidays, I went to a Christmas party with my writers group. The booze was flowing and we were all feeling quite holly and jolly, so towards the end of the night I light-heartedly posed the question, “How many of you worry about your wrinkles?”
Immediately, all the women said they do.
And all the men said they’ve never thought about it a day in their life.
…
Awesome.2
Finally, I found acceptance in the most unexpected place.
One night this past winter, towards the end of our six month stint in Manchester, my husband and I decided to watch a movie together. We browsed online for a bit before landing on the Oscar-award winning film CODA.
CODA stands for “child of deaf adults,” and the 2021 film portrays 17-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones), who is the hearing daughter of deaf parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur). She’s caught between duty and passion — should she stay and help her family’s fishing business or should she leave to pursue singing in college?
Honestly, I loved the film for many reasons, but two of the biggest are the parent actors: Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur. Take two minutes to watch this scene:
Matlin and Kotsur, like their on-screen characters, are deaf in real life. I sat there, enamored with the way they communicated using their hands, their bodies, and their faces.
Their faces were not the perfectly smooth faces you find on Botox advertisements or edited social media posts. Their faces were heavily lined with wrinkles that allowed them to smile, scowl, squint, question.
And they were the most beautiful faces I had ever seen.
The whole movie, I was obsessed with how communicative and expressive these two actors were. It completely opened my eyes.
We should want our faces to become lined over time — we use our faces to laugh, to grieve, to celebrate, to understand, to tease, to flirt, and to mirror others.
Why do we view this as bad?
Why do we look for ways to erase the evidence of our living?
Since moving to Munich in May, one of my favorite activities has been riding the subway and looking at all the people’s uniquely lined faces. Time’s artwork on the canvas of our skin.
Through these lines, I can read the stories of their lives.
If someone has deep crows feet that shoot out from their eyes, how joyful they must be. If someone has worry lines furrowed between their eyebrows, what trials they must have fretted over. If someone has bags under their eyes, how tough sleep must’ve been last night. And then there’s the special treat when a face changes, as if magic — maybe the person laughs at something their friend says or they smile at a baby beside them. Suddenly more beautiful creases appear, transforming their entire face into something kinder, softer. Human.
Our faces are a communication tool. Wrinkles are not merely signs of aging but symbols of a life fully lived. I hope we all learn to embrace them.
Upon going back to Reddit wrinkle threads for research as I write this in September 2024, I am finding a lot more comments beyond Botox, which is encouraging. Perhaps the Botox comments scared me the most, securing their spot within my long-term memory. (Also, no judgement to those who have gotten Botox! Just not for me at this time.)
This set off a whole new crisis about how different aging is for men vs. women. This essay is more about my own personal journey with the aging process, but let me know if you want me to explore the other topic, because OH BOY DO I HAVE THINGS TO SAY!
Beautiful commentary on how aging can affect us! I think about it a lot too - this idea that, as women, we lose something as we age, but really we're gaining SO much. It's a joy to get older and experience life with more knowledge and wisdom. <3