I Call BS on "Aging Gracefully"
a repost for those who might’ve missed it (or who need a gentle reminder)
Welcome readers, old and new!
Please remember to hit the ❤️ button above, which activates a flashing green light at the intersection of love and appearance, unlocking access to self-appreciation everywhere.
Brief confession: With a steady influx of new readers, a battle has been waging lately at HNTFUYF between a service journalism angel sitting on my right shoulder and an ego devil on my left. The devil goads, How do I get even more readers? And more? The angel whispers, Intention to be helpful, first! F*ck the ego. (It’s a salty angel.) I’m bringing this up because of a recent reader response.
Said reader happens to be a loving person. Though she’s a stranger to me, I know this because at the end of her email detailing her disappointment with HNTFUYF, she signed off with, “Love to you and thank you for understanding my perspective.”
As a person who’s found satisfaction (maybe even happiness) after a facelift, she felt unsupported by the atmosphere at HNTFUYF. She wrote, “It feels more like if you aren't happy with aging gracefully in non-surgical ways, then [HNTFUYF] just isn’t for you. I find myself in a place in my life where I thought my face needed a bit of a lift to let me feel like it matched how I felt overall. I work so hard to keep myself healthy mentally and physically and my decision for a procedure was an easy one.” To which I say, good for you!
Her email followed another in which a reader shared that she was deeply offended by the fact that HNTFUYF allowed that filler might even be considered an option for some women. How misogynistic could I get?
You see the dilemma.
But both criticisms are helpful. More readers means many more and many different ideas about what aesthetic choices are “right” or “appropriate.”
I maintain that the “right” choice for you is the one you’re happiest with, whether it’s eschewing any and all treatments or electing to have surgery. I could probably do a better job of expressing that, so anyone can feel comfortable hanging out in our yard.
And about that phrase “aging gracefully?” I think it’s often used in a way that presents another difficult objective as we endure the challenges of getting older. No matter what aesthetic choices you make, you must look good—you must embrace (a word I used to love and now 🤢) your changing face and body. But if your goal is to live gracefully—with presence, intention, and compassion—what does aging have to do with it? As my six-year-old granddaughter likes to say, “Nuffing.” Let’s age gratefully, or disgracefully, or—you know, it’s hard enough—let’s just do it.
A friend recently suggested I look at an article in the New York Times that was, he said, about how to get beautiful skin. Having missed the story, I looked it up. It was about the makeup artist Gucci Westman’s skincare line.
The title “In Pursuit of Luminous Skin” made me think it was about how one might achieve that—but the story was bottom-line an advertisement for Westman’s products. This, as you may know, is what passes for beauty “journalism” and IMHO it sucks (no offense to the writer). Not because there’s anything wrong with writing about a popular makeup artist’s new skincare line, but because the story is packaged in such a way as to encourage you to believe it’s more than an ad, which it is not. And because it’s in the New York Times, you might want to believe that a reporter has at least researched the ingredients in the skincare line and ascertained their probable effectiveness—but nope. Westman is beautiful. Her products are beautiful. But buying her products will not make you beautiful.
Another friend sent me a story from Vanity Fair Australia with this gratifying headline: “Justine Bateman Explains Decision to Age Naturally: ‘I Just Don't Give a Shit.’” I do wonder about the idea of “aging naturally.” Does that mean you’re aging “unnaturally” if you’re inclined to avail yourself of aesthetic interventions? I expect each of us might have a different answer to that question.
Did you know the science/speculative fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin also had wise thoughts about beauty? I’ve mentioned her before but here’s more:
There’s the ideal beauty of youth and health, which never really changes, and is always true. There’s the ideal beauty of movie stars and advertising models, the beauty-game ideal, which changes its rules all the time and from place to place, and is never entirely true. And there’s an ideal beauty that is harder to define or understand, because it occurs not just in the body but where the body and the spirit meet and define each other.
That must be what the great artists see and paint. That must be why the tired, aged faces in Rembrandt’s portraits give us such delight: they show us beauty not skin-deep but life-deep.
“Life-deep beauty.” Now, there’s a phrase I wish we could all get behind.
BTW, a few readers pointed out that Frank Bruni, in his newsletter at The New York Times, mentioned a story I wrote last week for The Cut. You can read it here if you scroll down to the “What I’m Writing, Doing and Reading” section.
A Housekeeping Moment
Several readers have written me saying that they didn’t receive their post on Tuesday morning and had to find it in the Substack app. If this happens to you, please follow the (teeny) protocol below, provided by Substack support (I’ve done my part). If that doesn’t solve the problem, write to me at valeriemonroe@substack.com. I will involve myself, even if it means delivering the post to you by unicycle, in a hurricane.
HNTFUYF, a Payola-Free Zone
Readers, a few of you have asked if I get a cut from sales when I mention a product. I do not; I have turned away affiliate offers. I only mention products I’d like to buy myself, and therefore think you might like, too. I share this so you know my recommendations are offered without obligation.
Val Asks You
Don’t be shy! What’s your most vexing or intractable appearance issue? Send your beauty-related questions to valeriemonroe@substack.com. If I don’t have a good answer, I’ll find someone who does.
I figure if you’re getting criticism from both ends of the spectrum, you’re probably doing a lot right! This feedback you’re receiving echoes my own ambivalence about my aging appearance. Part of me is right there with Justine Bateman (I really enjoyed her “Face’” which I listened to as an audiobook). But the other part of me pulls back my jowls to inspect how I might look with a little procedure to reclaim my former jawline — the most bothersome (to me) marker of my age, the one that dismays me when I catch an unplanned glimpse in a mirror. We are all aging, gracefully or otherwise, and the graceful part seems to be in the eye of the beholder — to a lot of my peers I look “good for my age” but if the standard were celebrity level, I can’t hold a candle to Christy Turlington (I’m only 3 years older than she is). I mostly come down to the decision that since I do not make a living off my looks, I am not hugely motivated to take drastic measures. And yet… some days the temptation is real.
Brava, Val! As always, you are wise and sensible.
Everyone has a different idea of what it means to "age gracefully" or "age naturally." Nobody's answer is the "right" one or the "best" one. This should be obvious, frankly, and if someone disagrees with another person's definition, so what? We can all make our own decisions without having to justify them to anyone else.
And what does "natural" even mean anyway? People use that term all the time to mean a thousand different things. Is it "natural" to comb our hair? Is it "natural" to shave -- for men their beards, for women whatever else? Is it "natural" to get tattoos (UGH to me, but YMMV)? Is it "natural" to put some color on our faces? Is it "natural" to walk around in pretty clothes or is it more "natural" to just roll out of bed and walk out in pajamas and fuzzy slippers? Is it "natural" to even wear clothes at all?
Poison mushrooms are "natural." Doesn't mean I want to eat them.
We are all part of nature; therefore, we are all "natural."
I've always liked Terence's saying: ""Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto" -- "Nothing human is alien to me."