THE PURSUIT OF ETERNAL YOUTH

How far should you go in pursuit of the fountain of youth?  If you visit  a shopping mall or restaurant in South Dakota, you probably will see plenty of white haired ladies with as many wrinkles as Barbara Bush.  Hop on a plane to Palm Springs, and you won’t find many women  growing old gracefully.  Some face lifts do take years off your face, if that’s what you’re going for.  Others can be grotesque, with skin pulled tight over cheekbones and lips plumped up like a duck.  You see a lot of the latter in California.  The one time I asked my husband if I needed a cosmetic surgery, he nearly had a heart attack, remembering all the botched face lifts we'd seen.   “Don’t you dare mess with the face of the woman I love,” he pleaded.  So that was the end of that.

Dental implants are popular to upgrade your smile, but some people go too far.  Perfectly formed and obviously fake white teeth can be a bit startling in an aging person , calling attention to the lines around their mouth. 

By the time I graduated from college, I had a “skunk” streak of white hair.  Often, I was asked if I had paint in my hair, but more often someone would say something like “you have white hair” as if I didn’t know .  I got so tired of the comments that I started “dyeing” my hair as soon as I got away from home.  My mother thought no lady would ever dye her hair, and that’s what they called it back then.  It was thought to be a bit trashy.  When it finally became fashionable to “color” your hair, I had already been doing it for 30 years.

Weight control is another problem, because the body needs fewer and fewer calories as we age.  But does it really matter that much if you’re slightly overweight?  Medical studies have shown that it’s healthy for the elderly to have a few extra pounds to get them through any ailments.  Some older women still work diligently to weigh what they did in their 20’s, but it doesn’t do a lot for their face.  A little padding helps smooth out the wrinkles.

By the time you’re a lady of eighty, you aren’t particularly vain about your looks.  You’re more interested in getting a hearing aid that works.  Eventually, you take a look in the mirror and say to yourself, “this is as good as it gets.”  What a relief.