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I get into trouble when I try envisioning myself in someone's eyes, which I don't usually do, but we all have our days... I don't color my hair, I think my face is still unlined enough to carry it off, but sometimes I'm tempted to color it because I think, if I'm driving in my car and some texting teen pulls up next to me, all he/she'll see is my q-tip top and I'll be discounted. Not that I care but like I said, we all have our days. On the other hand, I went to a reiki session last month and the receptionist, who was close to my age, out of the blue told me I was beautiful. She made my day for sure. But again, we all have our days. Sometimes all I see are pores and thinning hair. Other days I see a mop of healthy gray hair and good clear skin. I've no clue what other people are seeing and that's their business. I know I'll never fix anything, at least not surgically.
I find it helpful to look up paparazzi pictures on the internet of celebrities we consider beautiful (Sophia Vergara, Jennifer Aniston, whatever floats your boat) WITHOUT their make up and professional hair stylist do's. I compare these photos to me at 7 a.m. before I wash my face. It's funny how I think that at my worst I look better than them at their worst!
Seriously, I have gained 60 pounds since I was in my prime 30 years ago. I hate photos of myself, I was always unphotogenic, but who cares. I just get interested in other things. Sometimes I get so busy, I don't even remember looking in a mirror on any given day. I know I must have brushed my teeth and hair, but I honestly barely glanced at the mirror. Try not to fixate on the superficial stuff. Do what you can to be clean, groomed, and put a little color on your lips and cheeks. Get a massage, a haircut and a manicure. You look better than you think, it's just that you're probably tired and depressed.
I'm not going back to quote, but here is the way you do it: You only look at yourself at home in the pink lightbulb light, and you carry that image with you in your head. Never look in the mirror after you leave the house.
disco sounds good, too
Those of you who are trying to make the rest of us feel shallow........ ha
I was short and ugly when I was young ... and I have two taller handsome older brothers. I was ugly when I was middle-aged. I am ugly now. So, I never had "looks" to lose.
What works for me is to have an interesting life, a sparkling personality, and I try to dress beautifully.
I started drafting this in Notepad last night when there were only a few posts, but had too many strands to piece together coherently and just gave up for the moment. I saw just now that many of my thoughts have already been posted since by others (as well as some other thoughts that would never have occurred to me but that are very welcome and remind me that sometimes I'm a bit too serious about things), but I finished this anyway and am posting just to share, FWIW.
I like to bring to mind the women who I never knew as other than old, because they were already old when I was born, who cared about me (especially my grandmother).
My grandmother had a hard life and still was so kind to me and to everyone--how could I think of her as anything but beautiful. Seen through my child's eyes, she was old but the opposite of ugly. My only experience of her was of the person she was in the last one third of her life. But she is luminously beautiful to me and is my hero. (I first typed "She was my hero" because she died decades ago, but that felt wrong. She is my hero.)
Also I wouldn't want to live in a world that was missing kindly, wise old people (note that I'm not saying all old people are kindly and wise but am referring to those who actually do fit that archetype). So it could be a matter of accepting with grace that life has its seasons, and eventually (if we live long enough) it's our turn to be in that season (not to idealize it or minimize the difficulties).
Which makes me think too of popular entertainment and how often one hears comments from older people that it's good when the occasional movie targeted to their age group comes out. So (at least some) older people do want arts and entertainment where their older faces are mirrored (there may be exceptions, but in general I think the creators are depicting, and the viewers are seeing, the beauty in those faces). And some younger people watch and see the beauty in those faces too (I know I did when I was younger).
And as much as there's wide agreement that we'd rather not experience the losses that accompany aging, there's also wide agreement that when someone dies young it's a shock and a loss. Well, consciously we know we can't have it both ways--to not die in our (physical) prime and to also not experience old age--but the unconscious seems to operate another way than logically at times, so these emotions will arise; it's all about deciding what to do when they arise.
I agree with Caladium's point about its being so important what you pay attention to. Some issues are unavoidable and better faced than denied/ignored, but others become more of an issue than they inherently have to--and, in particular, make us feel our life's possibilities are more limited than they actually are--because we choose to focus so much attention on them. So I agree, to whatever extent we're in a position to choose our focus of attention and activities, choosing well can make a big difference.
Also I think the more people understand the need to consciously counteract the unconscious tendency to equate beauty with good, the better off we'll all be. It's enormously powerful and creeps into just about every area of life. I'm not anti-beauty, but it's the "halo effect"--the fallacy that beautiful people also automatically must possess every other positive characteristic that matters to us--that does us in in countless ways. (There should be cradle-to-grave classes in this--it's so important!) Thank goodness at least that the correlation works to some extent the opposite way--that when people are good, they often become beautiful in our eyes.
I also find the widely used expression "losing your looks" very interesting. Because again, from a logical/conscious perspective it makes no sense to think of how we look within a certain age span as being "our" looks that we lose. I have "looks" now, just not the same ones I had years ago--and no one, nor anything in my experience, ever led me to expect permanence--quite the opposite! But again, the term is pervasive, so there's something more powerful going on than conscious reasoning. We all understand that when someone talks about losing their looks, they are not referring to how they looked at age 10 or 60. But why does sense of identity latch on so strongly to something that's transitory?
I think there are reasons, or it wouldn't be happening. People often mention vanity in this context, and I'm sure there's something to that if we're comparing people, looking at individual differences or even cultural differences, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some more universal underpinnings involved as well. I'd love to read a well-researched interdisciplinary book about this.
I was interested enough to do a search on the origin of the expression losing your looks and what came up was interesting. It was more about how not to, or feelings about, or people noting that someone had--not the origin of the expression itself. I'm interested in words, so I occasionally do these "What is the origin of the expression _____" searches, and this is the first time I haven't gotten many top-of-the-list results on exactly that--the origin of the expression. So although it is obviously an expression, not a literal truth, perhaps it is not recognized as such compared to other expressions? (Or could be it's just such a widely discussed topic, and maybe some people have done SEO on their two cents, and what I was looking for would have turned up if I'd had more patience to look further down the list.)
"Two-faced" is another interesting expression in this context. It's like we (falsely) so closely equate the face with what's behind it that when someone's actions don't match their promises, or what they express at one time doesn't match what they express at another, instead of reaching the obvious conclusion that there was a discrepancy between what the face presented and what the person felt/intended (and that we therefore at times need to not trust appearances), we apparently sometimes find it easier to explain things by conjuring an extra face (to speak of them as having two faces)!
This is all very interesting to me because there's a lot going on that's not rational but is nevertheless very intrinsic to our emotional experience, very widely shared.
Imcurious, I was happy for you, and not surprised, to read that you "had a moment and am pretty much moving through it," and I hope you won't feel any of what I've written is off-topic even though my choice--with this issue and also in general--is to look at things philosophically. The mirror and camera are not my particular friend either, so I can relate and am sharing thoughts that genuinely help me. Thanks for initiating such an interesting discussion.
I was short and ugly when I was young ... and I have two taller handsome older brothers. I was ugly when I was middle-aged. I am ugly now. So, I never had "looks" to lose.
What works for me is to have an interesting life, a sparkling personality, and I try to dress beautifully.
You posted your photo once I think and I think, if that was you, you're handsome.
I think men, in general, have less of a hard time with losing their youthful appearance. With many older men you see on TV and in real life, it's impossible to guess what they looked like when in their prime. Nevertheless, they do not appear self-conscious, nor do they have the means at their disposal to "fix themselves up" with makeup and hair products like women do. Usually I can guess, when I look at an older woman, approximately what she looked like when younger. I do think most women age better than most men.
Getting used to losses when we get older takes some doing. One may lose her shapely legs, another her lovely thick hair, another her fine skin. But after the Boston marathon bombing and also seeing men and women return from war, and seeing what they're coping with in terms of body image (loss of limbs, paralysis, etc) I guess I feel pretty lucky, even as I turn into an old crone.
I disagree with those who say make it up in other ways. I'm sure the OP does. But what she's talking about is one of the most difficult things in the world to lose: our youthful looks. Photos of me 5 years ago make me think I still had it, but photos of me today I'd just as soon ditch. Even 5 years makes a difference, the older we get.
We used to visit my grandmother-in-law in the nursing home in Portsmouth. She was in a wheelchair and at 99, looked so fine. The reason was was that she glowed. She had a headband with a bow in her thinning hair, she wore bright red lipstick and soft face powder and a touch of eyeliner. She didn't look made up. She did wear a lot of 30s-style jewelry and she sported the most flirtateous, mischievous smile and was a great tease. Even our kids loved to visit her, and there she was sharing a small room with an old frump who watched TV 24-7.
I really hope some of her attitude has rubbed off on me.
I was short and ugly when I was young ... and I have two taller handsome older brothers. I was ugly when I was middle-aged. I am ugly now. So, I never had "looks" to lose.
What works for me is to have an interesting life, a sparkling personality, and I try to dress beautifully.
Like Clark, I have very good looking sibs - then they meet me and wow, a real plain Jane. But oh well, over the years, I've gotten used to it.
However, I was in my 20's and worked for a computer company. There was a Christmas party coming up and I decided to get my hair and makeup done and get a new outfit! Result - no one recognized me, no one! I still have the pictures and show them to my own children - and I was super skinny at the time - most likely around 100.
PS - Clark - think I saw your pic once - you are not ugly!
I disagree with those who say make it up in other ways. I'm sure the OP does. But what she's talking about is one of the most difficult things in the world to lose: our youthful looks. Photos of me 5 years ago make me think I still had it, but photos of me today I'd just as soon ditch. Even 5 years makes a difference, the older we get.
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I may have it wrong but the way I read the op and the way I responded was not about losing our youthful looks.
It was about going from having an attractive face to now owning one that is not ...one that is no longer pleasing or recognizable as the one we were used to seeing all our adult years...one that all the makeup and nice new hair styles isn't going to change.
Those things still may make one look 'better' and nice but won't necessarily make one
pretty/ cute /gorgeous... whatever the original was.
I know plenty of older and really old women whose features still add up to just an older version of themselves and can still easily be called good looking relative to their age.
How have you coped with losing your looks (if you feel you have lost your looks)?
I had a couple of very rough years, and aged ten years in one year. When I see my photos, I think I look "ugly."
I am not sure what to do about this, because I am not going to be getting more attractive with age.
How do you manage seeing less than flattering pictures of yourself as you age?
I just processed a bunch of pictures and actually said, "You are ugly."
I think I am seriously ugly now. I used to be attractive, so it is a little disturbing. I would be okay with just losing my looks, but crossing over into ugly is too much.
I seriously know where you're coming from. I was a head turner up into my mid 40's to even 50. A body builder and won a few beauty contests. I'm 66 now and feel like I look 90. My body is ok as I still work out some but my face is more wrinkled than a bull dogs. This all came on quickly too, like in the last few years. I look older than my Mother!!!!. I've tried every cream you can name. Nothing works. I think one cause is the Chemo I had to take 20 yrs ago for breast cancer. I know it seems odd to think that it's now showing in my face, but I believe it. Just one year ago, I thought I looked great for a 65 yr old. This all happened to me in a years time too. Did you ever have chemo, radiation or any strong medications? I've researched a lot lately and learned that those can creep up on you when you age. It's so difficult to see myself in the mirror. One reason too is that I literally turned heads everywhere I went. Men of all ages were all over me LOL and now...humph Nothing. Makes it tougher getting older when you were once very pretty I think.
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Clark said it well....
