I know it sounds arrogant to older folks and banal to younger folks to write a eulogy about the days of my early twenties at age 27, but it's been on my mind.
There are a couple reasons why I want to look older, and unfortunately, it's mostly for the respect I could earn professionally. But also, I like the idea of being old, too. Old and wise. As a woman, however, I'm realizing that you become invisible after a certain age. I know I'm not there yet (the other day, a pubescent teenager asked God to bless me, followed by a shuffling, bent, old man who, with great effort, stopped in front of me to simply utter, "Beauty!"), but I'm certainly well on my way.
[As a side note, I rarely take those street hollers to be a statement about my attractiveness, but rather, a nod to my "exoticism," in addition to the usual Anonymous Man On The Street With Power, which is why it is never a compliment, but oppression.]
About a year ago, I remember being at a party and watching a girl nearly three years my junior scantily clad, with a big smile, swooshing her hair around, and jumping from one group to another. I suddenly felt old. I found myself, for the first time, not feeling good about being older, but feeling expired.
My sister is six years older than me, and for the last couple of years, she's been fixated on her wrinkles and how it has entirely changed her face. I realized, I always stupidly considered embracing old age when I'm literally white-haired and pruney, but forgetting about the process of getting to that stage, where inevitably you look different than how you want to feel, or how you used to look just four years ago, and can't seem to get over the transformation slipping through your fingers.
How much of my weight gain is part of who I am as a normal person collecting years, and how much of it is my fault? How come it's not as easy as it was in college, to eat whatever I wanted and just go to the gym and maintain it? Did I mistakenly chop my long hair off to forever be stuck in the unoriginal middle length? Should I have kept my bangs (that someone at a wedding last year told me was my defining physical characteristic??)? Should I have let my brows remain painfully arched? Can I still pull off wearing *vintage* clothing reminiscent of someone's rug from the 80s? Or short bodycon dresses? Is it my defense speaking when I say that I want to dress less feminine and more androgynous?
Even though my personality type is quite depressive (as my own mother pointed out), and I partly enjoy indulging in my sadness, I usually come to the conclusion that sulking may provide some insight, but often with little results. It starts with acceptance, and then my proactive push towards making myself feel better.
