Debi at 60

I am a 60 year old woman who is tired of the world of advertising and writers who have gotten on the eternal youth bandwagon, trying to convince me that it is NOT ok to look my age. I am sick of the ads for Botox, the take years off your face plastic surgery stories and most of all, the ridiculous  ads for how to avoid aging skin using 30 something year old actresses.

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

Everywhere I turn I read about this. Is there no escape?

Here is my message to all the ad agencies hired by beauty companies, writers who have gone under the knife and feel compelled to share their uplifting (get the pun) stories, plastic surgeons who need to build an addition on their house at my expense, pharmaceutical companies who make a zillion dollars and anyone else whose intent is to make me feel uncomfortable about what I look like.

I LIKE WHAT I LOOK LIKE AT 60!!

I like my laugh lines and I’m glad that with everything life has thrown my way, I still have a sense of humor. I have no desire to look like my  beautiful 27 year old daughter, a.k.a Heidi D. I  was once a cute 27 year old and now I’m an adorable 60 year old. (According to the man I have loved for 35 years.)

Debi at 27

Heidi D

I’m happy with my face just the way it is. I remember when I moved to Miami Beach in 1966 and discovered that some of my classmates in my junior class in high school had already undergone plastic surgery. The most popular was nose jobs. I was very surprised by all of this and wondered what they looked like before their transformations. Years later, having married a  high school  classmate, I discovered some old pictures and thought most of these kids looked pretty good  before their surgeries. To this day, I feel that many of those nose jobs were done so that the kids would look less ethnic and look like what they (and/or their parents) considered more attractive. Anyone who has studied my pictures will see that I kept my original nose..the one with the droop on the end that I can wiggle really well! One last thought on this subject which I find very interesting. A generation later, due to so much intermarriage, this ritual of  children having nose jobs to water down their ethnicity has diminished greatly.

The reason I shared the high school story was because I feel that what it happening with this obsession with youth is similar to what I saw 45 years ago in my high school.  Many aging adults have become like 15 year old kids, uncomfortable with who they are and what they look like. They are being convinced that a quick fix like plastic surgery or an injection of  Botox will make everything better. They are feeling, thanks to society’s obsession with youth, that they are not attractive, not desirable and (G-d forbid) less important to society.

I say it is time to start to start finding the BEAUTY in every stage of life.

I say it is ok to grow old gracefully.

I say that there is no shame in looking your age!

I like being AUTHENTIC ME!

Have you had enough of the American obsession with looking perfect? Do you wish we could go back to the days when it was acceptable to have a little meat on your bones, a laugh line or two, and a face that people remembered as YOU?


Join the AUTHENTIC ME CAMPAIGN.  Send me your thoughts on who and/or what you consider BEAUTIFUL! Let’s redefine the word BEAUTY in this country!