This past Saturday night, my darling husband and I attended a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser for a family we know affected by the disease. It was a wonderful event. Good food, good music, great friends and a fabulous cause...and of course, lots and lots of pictures taken.
That's when I realized things were no longer the same... As we sat laughing and having a terrific time, cameras were busy snapping candids and all was right with the world...that is until I hit the back button. I started scrolling through the pictures and found myself staring at the small lcd screen, the words "Oh my God, is that what I really look like?" reverberating off the walls of my brain. Why is it that men always seem to get better looking with age, but as a woman approaches the most vital, most productive, most creative time in her life, everything else seems to go south along with her boobs? It's the ultimate betrayal. Mother Nature's practical joke on womankind. Sunday morning I got up and took inventory of my face. As I stared at myself in the mirror, it was the first time I saw shades of my mother's face looking back. The transformation isn't complete, but the outlines...along with the crowsfeet...are there. Squaring my shoulders, I realized I had a choice. I could either view my newly discovered signs of aging as badges of honor or signs of decay. Which was it going to be? Like with one of my stories, it became a matter of POV. Was I going to allow myself to wallow in what the world tells me is beautiful, or was I going to do some world building of my own and create my own definition? So, botox or battle scars? For my own sake, and for the sake of the two girls I am trying to raise till the day they find me staring back at them from some mirror, I decided to place my bets on my own definitions. After all, words are my weapons...and whether or not they are on the written page, or in the mantra I tell myself everyday...they are powerful. I am powerful. I am beautiful. I am woman. What's your definition?
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