Can we be real about aging? Please?

Seeing your face changing is not fun. And it's OK to admit that.

We don’t subscribe to The New Yorker anymore. Watching them stack up, only about 20% read, week after week, became a source of dejection and despair—a visible reminder of the fact that we will never accomplish or experience all that we hope to in our lifetimes. And this sort of existential dread is just not what one wants from one’s magazine subscriptions, you know?

But I do miss it sometimes, especially the covers, many of which have stuck with me for years. I particularly loved the ones by Chris Ware. They so beautifully capture both larger cultural moments and more intimate, personal ones. He’s sort of a modern-day Norman Rockwell, but with more melancholic undertones and a stronger political bent.

One of his covers that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is this one, called “Mirror”:

“The Mirror” New Yorker Cover by Chris Ware

This speaks to me so damned hard. I’ve got two fresh-faced teenagers, including a daughter who is learning how to use clothes and makeup and other such things to enhance her loveliness. She is on the cusp of womanhood, blossoming.

I remember that feeling. I remember looking in the mirror at sixteen and thinking: I’m starting to look like a woman—and I look pretty good! I look cute in this clingy dress, or those heels, or these stonewashed, high-waisted, button-fly jeans! (It was the early 90s. And actually, I didn’t, but no matter.)

Now, in my late forties, when I look in the mirror I often find myself thinking, wait, what? What the hell is happening here?

I see my neck turning crêpey and the first traces of teeny little vertical lines over my lips—the kind I associate with gravel-voiced chain smokers and bad, hot-pink lipstick. I see age spots appearing here and there—a puke tan one has recently taken up residence on my collarbone, and a little dark brown slash appeared on my jaw a couple of weeks ago and was like, “Ha ha. Deal with it.” Meanwhile, the hollows beneath my eyes are getting steadily deeper, such that it would not surprise me to find a small family of foxes living in them in the near future.

I also have this sinking feeling that some morning maybe five, six years from now, I’m going to look in the bathroom mirror and my nascent jowls are going to dramatically unfurl into big, droopy, actual jowls, right in front of my eyes. There might even be a little “ta da!” trumpet sound.

ta-da.

As I’ve said before, I wish I didn’t give a shit about this stuff. I’d love to be one of those mythical paragons of feminism and self-actualization who sees her face changing in the mirror and thinks: “My aging visage is evidence of the fact that I am still walking this blessed earth! I am so grateful to be alive! Fie on the patriarchy! Fie on conventional beauty standards!” And then maybe I’d go meditate or drink a cup of green tea or talk to a plant or something.

But you know what? Sometimes I feel like the pressure on women not to care about how their looks change as they age is just as strong as the opposing pressure to keep ourselves looking young and beautiful for as long as possible.

I also think the whole conversation around aging/beauty leaves out a very important piece of the equation—that it’s not only about what’s happening on an aesthetic level that can be hard to accept. It’s also about what those aesthetic changes represent. Specifically, the passage of time.

It’s not particularly fun look in the mirror and see evidence of your mortality staring back at you.

It is also not fun to see a face that no longer quite matches the age you feel like on the inside. I recently read something in The Atlantic (which only comes once a month and therefore doesn’t hurt my soul) about how people feel on average 20% younger than their chronological age. I thought, OK, I feel about 40. Then I did the math: 17% younger than I actually am. Pretty close.

Let me just qualify all of this by saying I don’t sit around crying about my crows’ feet (which I actually rather like) or stewing about the slow, downward slide of my cheeks. Worrying about my appearance, or aging in general, takes up only a teensy bit of my emotional and intellectual energy, and whining at length about it would be vain, stupid, and downright annoying. (Speaking of which, this post is almost over.)

But I do think it’s OK to be real about this stuff—to admit to ourselves and our friends and maybe even our kids that it’s hard to see yourself changing. It’s hard to feel yourself gradually losing the power that youth and beauty afford (regardless of whether or not you like that they afford power; they do). It’s hard to know that things will continue to progress: the spots will multiply, the wrinkles will proliferate, and more and more little baby foxes will be able to fit beneath your eyes. It’s hard to know that there’s no going back.

Maybe it will get easier. Maybe it’s especially tricky now because I’m at this middle-age pivot-point, where suddenly the changes in my body seem to be acclerating. Maybe in ten or fifteen years, I’ll cease to give a shit what my skin looks like, and will whole-heartedly embrace my inner crone. That would be nice. But until then, I’m not going to pretend I’m above it all.

Pass the eye cream.

P.S. It’s less than a month ‘til The Society of Shame is inflicted upon the world!! The Tour of Shame is shaping up, and I’d love to see YOU at an upcoming event! Here’s what’s on the calendar so far…..

• April 6, 7pm: Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA

• April 10, 7:30pm: Boswell Books / Milwaukee Reads, at Shully’s A.T.S. Tickets required.

• April 12, 7pm: Women & Children First,Chicago, IL

• April 14, 7pm: Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA

• April 17,  7pm: P&T Knitware, New York, NY

• April 19,  6pm: Fairfield University Bookstore, Fairfield, CT

• April 27, 7pm: Wellesley Books, Wellesley, MA

• April 29, Newburyport Literary Festival. Details TBA

• May 4, 7pm Dire Literary Series (virtual event)

• May 11, 10 am: Buttonwood Books “Coffee With the Authors,” at the Cohasset Lightkeeper’s House, Cohasset, MA.

• May 17, 4pm:  Authors Love Bookstores (virtual event)

• May 17, 6pm: Longfellow Books, Portland, ME

• May 20, 1-3 pm, In-store signing, Sherman’s Book Shop, Freeport, ME location

• June 20, 7 pm, Concord Free Library, Concord, MA

P.P.S. I really enjoyed doing this interview about my book over at Library Thing. They asked excellent questions—about internet scandals, the perils of social media, shame culture, and more. And I managed to work cabbage throwing into my answers, which I’m quite proud of.