No longer expected to be beautiful

Age brings freedom, even for gingers

I was never a high maintenance kind of girl.  I quickly grew out of my teen blue mascara and pearly pink Rimmel lipstick phase and only ever wear face powder and a lick of mascara, even on my wedding day. I never learned how to do plaits or cool hair dos and I hate the feeling of false nails or nail varnish.  I had to wear glasses from a young age and having ginger hair with the tendency to frizz, I was often gleefully told how ugly I was by the “handsome” boys at school.  Aside from ginger minger and speccy four-eyes, there was another phrase that stuck with me; ‘nice legs shame about the face’.  Somewhere inside me though was always a rebel voice, and a steely resilience probably because I’m a gen X woman.

Born in 1975 I grew up feral in the 70s and 80s on a council estate. My parents expected me to fend for myself as well as look after my three younger siblings.  I was a teen at the beginning of the 90s and had my daughter right at the end. I overcompensated with her, I'm not sure I know what a happy medium looks like for parenting! Now I’m running around after both children and parents, juggling life with working hard, driven by a fear of not being able to provide for my family.

How did I stumble into thinking I needed to have my hair coloured every six weeks to keep the greys at bay, and what made me even care if other people thought I was uglier when wearing glasses?  Lockdown started my awakening with no option to go to the salon. Were those awful bullying words affecting me in ways I hadn’t considered?

Yes of course they were in hindsight.

I’ve always found beauty in unconventional places and people.  Crushes I had were as often the quirky as the traditionally beautiful.  The ability to make me laugh or cry through creative expression has always appealed to me more than looks. Intelligence turns me on. Kindness matters to me.  I am attracted to souls more than faces or genders. It is too easy though to be influenced by the world around us without consciously choosing that path, and letting that dull our own sense of worth and uniqueness.  We are bombarded with adverts and opinions and comparisons and need to more actively curate them away from the core of us.

I’ve learned to love my face exactly as it is, which sounds really weird and is scary to say out loud. I was raised to be a good girl, and good girls aren’t supposed to be loud or confident.  I still struggle on and off with the effects of ageing, the wrinkles on my forehead especially as they make me look like I’m frowning.  I have the perennial struggle going on in my mind as to whether I should cut in a fringe to hide them. I do though love my face.

There is something increasingly freeing the further we move away from the overt misogyny of the last century, especially in the workplace. There is no denying though, that moving nearer to fifty comes with its own sense of freedom.  I am not expected to be beautiful. The pressure has lifted.  The amazing thing though is that confidence often brings with it real flashes of beauty.

I see fear in some people’s eyes when women find their inner strength and beauty and no longer worry about being attractive to others.  Calling older women witches is there to prevent confidence, to stop you becoming powerful.  To keep you diminished and busy with lotions instead of calling out the bullshit you see around you.

The more I push myself out of my comfort zone, the more I amplify being completely bare, like being in 4k on a big screen with no makeup on and with a quiet almost hesitant voice. I didn’t like it at first, not at all.  We are being taught by technology that we don’t look good enough, with built in filters and blurs to all the most popular apps.  Making myself do it has been part of the journey I have been on, to really come to terms with the way I look and sound.  I’ve glimpsed the world when I am genuinely confident in my own skin and I want that more consistently.  I also want it for everyone else in whatever way feels most natural for you.  Wear your contact lenses and makeup if it is driven from within you and for you, and not driven by the words of a bully or the expectations of society. Or technology telling you that you need the auto makeup and blur.

I feel it in my bones that finding my real voice and path is to be painfully honest and raw and bare. I’m embracing my imperfections both internal and external.

I’m giving myself the grace I have always given others.

It is a powerful place, accepting the greys along with the reds. With a renewed sense of what is important, I am harnessing the energy conserved by no longer caring so much about all this!

I mostly don’t wear makeup and I mostly do wear my glasses now.

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PS: This is essay number three of Write of Passage cohort 11, the prompt was to write about ‘Your Viewpoint’ and my shiny dime was riffing on the concept of leaning in to the confidence that being middle aged brings to Gen X women.  I’d love to hear from you if you’ve made it this far, where are you on your own personal acceptance and confidence journey? I am still Sarah Seeking Ikigai and looking for people that resonates with so that we can help each other