I LOOOOOVE older women. Not in that way. (But also yes, in that way).

I think they're glamorous, sexy, elegant and so fucking COOL. The idea that women become any LESS of these things as they age is demented to me. I mean, I scroll Pinterest boards of older women and I could nearly cry. Take the photo above: The exuberance. The style. Everything about her is beautiful INCLUDING, not in spite of, her wrinkles. So why the fuck do I hate mine so much?

Context: About 6 months ago, I started noticing these little lines around my mouth appearing.

You know, smile lines, AKA a direct indicator that I have been HAPPY and enjoying myself? 

Yeah, those. 

They are eating. me. alive.

I have been non-stop slathering retinol on them, booking filler consultations, I’ve even paid hundreds of dollars for micro-needling in HOPES that they'd disappear. 

They did not. So what's the discrepancy?

How can I look at all these photos of older women and be in awe. They are ETHEREAL to me. I envy how they look, how they carry themselves, EVERYTHING about them. So surely, I should be happy that I'm aging, right? 

RIGHT?!!! 

Nope. I am CAUGHT. In the prison that is fearing aging.

It's ridiculous. I'm ANNOYED at myself for feeling this way. I'm twenty fucking six and I'm crying because I have marks from SMILING? Oh my god shut uuuuuup!!!!

And it literally is just ME. Like, if I noticed my friends getting lines on their face YOU KNOW WHAT I'D THINK? 

"Wow she's stunning!". 

"Oh my god she looks unbelievable!"

SO THEN WHYYYY can't I extend that kindness to myself? Is it because I have less of an attachment to the appearance of my friends? That I will always see them as beautiful on the outside because of their inner beauty?

Is it because these Pinterest women are frozen in time? Because I've never seen them at my age, I don't have anything to compare them to? 
Maybe the learned judgement for women aging cannot apply to women whom I have not SEEN age? I see them as a whole, complete person rather than a lesser version of their younger selves? 

Unlike those women, I can SEE myself changing, and I don't identify with the woman I see. That's fucked. I want to see myself in the woman that has smiled enough to leave lines on her face. I want to see myself in the woman who spends her life expressing, indulging and laughing. I want to see myself in the Pinterest women. In they're effortlessly cool, carefree, have-lived-a-great-fuckin-life attitude.

How I get there, I don't know.