Another Great honest piece! Love the letting go of balloons image. And recollections from the dressing rooms.
My two cents? Wait till you get into your sixties or / and illness is visited upon you…. I mean, NO fucks given. It’s liberating in spite of feeling and often looking like shit. We women must stop catering to societal / cultural / media demands and to men who have largely promulgated such hideous ideals since forever— remember the tiny deformed stub of Chinese women’s feet leaving women pained and utterly helpless to mobilize therefore dependent upon men…. Or the whale bone corsets… the cruel misogynistic patriarchal system with its f’d up rewards and punishments associated with not being beautiful. To hell with all that.
"It was the walk of a woman on display and it brought forth an emotional memory, too: of being a young woman with an identity just barely developed. Someone who wanted to be seen while trying to make sure it didn’t seem like she wanted to be seen.
Then I exhaled, rooting myself back in my 40-something body. Just the memory of being that young was exhausting."
RIGHT? That thing we did - that we almost had to do as products of this era - it was exhausting. It was soul-sucking. And there's been this freedom in seeing that I did it, and understanding the whys/hows of it all. Your Longform essay really named so many aspects I hadn't quite landed on. I honestly love aging for this, I love how we all are helping one another along, finding words for things our mothers' generation probably never could speak or even understand in their 30s and 40s.
When I was 17 I witnessed a 70ish year old woman naked on a deserted beach in France sunbathing. When she noticed our approach she didn’t cover herself or move to hide in any way. I carry her around in my mind a lot. — Thank you for this piece — as a 30 year old new Mom I needed to read so much of this!
I'm so happy I found you and your work. I was talking to friends today about a Carl Jung idea that we don't solve problems but outgrow them, and I applied it to wanting to always look 25 (I am 42)/being outward appearance-focused. I don't think I can solve my desire to look younger, but I think I can transcend/outgrow it.
A well-told and insightful piece, Joanna! I remember your phase of life, when I was transitioning out of youthful hotness into a more mature body and mind. It was a thorny transition. I'm 15 years ahead of you, and I'm grateful for my 60-year-old body. I've fully embraced the "I don't give a fuck" stage, which I can't recommend highly enough!
Thank you for this. A couple of days ago, a friend posted something online about aging, and dozens of women posted photos of themselves talking about how much younger they look than their age. It struck me as ageist, and made me uncomfortable, but I couldn't exactly identify why. This helps.
So glad this piece bubbled to the top in Notes so I could find it at this late date. I loved it. Thank you. A while back I read somewhere, "when I was a child, I didn't HAVE a body. I WAS a body." And I keep coming back to that over and over again. This 54 year old body that birthed two kids, and saw my mom gently into her death, that carries me around every day with strength and skill, it's not something I need to manage, it's not something separate from me. It's ME! I am this body. Somehow when I remind myself of this, I feel so much more acceptance and tenderness for those rolls and scars and disappearing eyebrows. Thanks so much. This was a lovely read and just what I needed.
At 80 you look old...get used to it. You earned every line. Yes, take care of your skin/self but don't be a slave to it. Just be your best self as you are now. That is more than enough.
Amazing. Relatable and reminds me of that piece I did for GMP when I was in my own 40s about ruined bodies (remember the “ruined tits” column it was in reaction to). I’m almost 54 it seems like I care less and less who thinks I’m ruined. It’s a good thing
We all look our age. The rest is biological determinism, a should of how, body virtue whatever, pride in conformity, a category mistake, towering misogyny in the form of false comfort no one has ever been comforted by.
This is a really powerful piece and resonates very deeply with me. Having turned 46 yesterday and having lost quite a bit of weight in the last year or so, my mind has been on my body in a way that it hasn’t since I was that insecure girl walking along - funnily enough - Robertson blvd.
I longed to be chic, to be cool. Tried so hard to be a club kid, tried even harder to fit into my best friend’s Guess wardrobe, tried so hard to give myself an identity. But I failed time and again - I wonder if the whole point of your twenties is to not have the connection, confidence or comfort of having a mind and body connected and not being eternally angry or disappointed in both.
Some of my scars are now my favourite parts of my body - they have a story to tell. Most of my tattoos (there are a few that went rogue) tell a story - the pain I endured to get them, mostly alone, often self-masochistic, the pain was part of the promise that I would somehow understand this vessel id been born into despite how it battled me and I battled it through the years. It’s so sad we spend so long, waste so many precious years awash in abject insecurity, having ourselves, comparing ourselves NEVER BEING ENOUGH!
At 46, I find myself at peace with my body. Although I couldn’t have biological children and, eventually deciding that this was the right path for me, I have found a peace in my bodies imperfection. I have settled into it over the years and the recent weight loss was driven more by health aspirations and less by vanity.
I like to tell myself that. I’m sure that my innate vanity factors in and the mirror is no longer a place I cower away from. I’ve been harsh with my body over the years - tattoos, drugs, drinking, smoking, running, staying awake far past my bedtime. I’ve been more harsh with my self-image. And yet in middle age, I find solace in my body now. My husband thinks I’m beautiful and while I don’t ravish in this validation, it doesn’t hurt. I don’t flinch when I look in the mirror. I have come to terms with the fact that it’s not that fucking important. And I’d rather have a martini than run a marathon.
My body has perseverance, it can tolerate pain - the blows I’ve dealt myself and the blows that have been beset on me by a series of not-so-nice boyfriends. It has been solid and stalwart. It has survived epic car crashes, spinal taps, foot surgery, a meth induced overdose, countless very serious suicide attempts, chronic insomnia, over-eating, under-eating, fever, sunstroke, it has survived. I am not striving for physical perfection or instagram health and good looks. The skin that I am in is a reflection of me and my greatest protector and I have great admiration for its endurance - as I’ve often joked throughout the years - once after I took 42 20mg Valiums and was in some sort of delusional state that the doctors swore I could not have taken all that and sustained life…I have often joked that I have the constitution of a horse.
But that horse is still running. I am always amazed by the sheer magnificence of my body especially as I move further into middle age. At sixteen, I am breathless to see a girl who had absolutely no concept of just how beautiful she was.
“You are beautiful no matter what they say…”
If you’re lucky, you learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself and ask your own body for forgiveness. It’s a bitter pill to swallow - to acknowledge that you spent a great portion of your formative years hating this gift of a body that you were born into. Terrified of having been born into this family that could never really see you. Of being alone and scared and lonely and heartbroken and pitied. Of being worthless.
Of learning to love the imperfection, to set boundaries when it comes to pain, to make a definitive choice to actually see what you’re looking at when you stare coldly into the harsh mirror. You settle into your own body like an old glove, you fill the spaces, you can hold things mercilessly against you or most gently. And you pave the way to an at-first tentative friendship with this body of yours, and then you learn to love it.
What a beautiful piece! As a woman in her mid-twenties, so much of this resonated with me. Trying to fit the beauty ideal is more about the idea of forcing women to submit to punishment and deprivation than to the idea that the beauty ideal is actually something attainable. Thank you for reminding us not to give a fuck.
Self-acceptance is a journey I am on—and definitely not an easy one! I find myself battling all the judgments I had when I was young toward other people, which I now direct toward myself. One line strikes me towards the end when you talk about letting everything go. I couldn't resonate more with it. It's funny I am finding this post today because I have just been writing about letting go and stopping fighting reality. The freedom one gets when we let go.. is so so worth the challenge of learning to let go. 💜
Never heard about 'elevens', but I have always liked them. Women with elevens look sophisticated. When they turn their elevens on—I never found the trigger, but it was always something I said—they look intrigued and puzzled at the same time; it's about the best compliment a man can get. My wife started to have elevens in her mid thirties. It was beautiful. When they showed like bold capitals however, I was in deep shit. So turn them on consciously while you can. Oh, by the way, let's call them elevenses, a short daily recess in honour of female sophistication.
Another Great honest piece! Love the letting go of balloons image. And recollections from the dressing rooms.
My two cents? Wait till you get into your sixties or / and illness is visited upon you…. I mean, NO fucks given. It’s liberating in spite of feeling and often looking like shit. We women must stop catering to societal / cultural / media demands and to men who have largely promulgated such hideous ideals since forever— remember the tiny deformed stub of Chinese women’s feet leaving women pained and utterly helpless to mobilize therefore dependent upon men…. Or the whale bone corsets… the cruel misogynistic patriarchal system with its f’d up rewards and punishments associated with not being beautiful. To hell with all that.
THIS IS IT:
"It was the walk of a woman on display and it brought forth an emotional memory, too: of being a young woman with an identity just barely developed. Someone who wanted to be seen while trying to make sure it didn’t seem like she wanted to be seen.
Then I exhaled, rooting myself back in my 40-something body. Just the memory of being that young was exhausting."
RIGHT? That thing we did - that we almost had to do as products of this era - it was exhausting. It was soul-sucking. And there's been this freedom in seeing that I did it, and understanding the whys/hows of it all. Your Longform essay really named so many aspects I hadn't quite landed on. I honestly love aging for this, I love how we all are helping one another along, finding words for things our mothers' generation probably never could speak or even understand in their 30s and 40s.
When I was 17 I witnessed a 70ish year old woman naked on a deserted beach in France sunbathing. When she noticed our approach she didn’t cover herself or move to hide in any way. I carry her around in my mind a lot. — Thank you for this piece — as a 30 year old new Mom I needed to read so much of this!
I'm so happy I found you and your work. I was talking to friends today about a Carl Jung idea that we don't solve problems but outgrow them, and I applied it to wanting to always look 25 (I am 42)/being outward appearance-focused. I don't think I can solve my desire to look younger, but I think I can transcend/outgrow it.
I love this!
A well-told and insightful piece, Joanna! I remember your phase of life, when I was transitioning out of youthful hotness into a more mature body and mind. It was a thorny transition. I'm 15 years ahead of you, and I'm grateful for my 60-year-old body. I've fully embraced the "I don't give a fuck" stage, which I can't recommend highly enough!
Thank you for this. A couple of days ago, a friend posted something online about aging, and dozens of women posted photos of themselves talking about how much younger they look than their age. It struck me as ageist, and made me uncomfortable, but I couldn't exactly identify why. This helps.
The comment 'you don't look your age' drives me bonkers. I do look my age. I look all of my glorious 57 years. THIS is what it looks like.
I LOVE looking my age!
Zawn, I would love to read an essay about this if you wrote one! I feel this so deeply.
So glad this piece bubbled to the top in Notes so I could find it at this late date. I loved it. Thank you. A while back I read somewhere, "when I was a child, I didn't HAVE a body. I WAS a body." And I keep coming back to that over and over again. This 54 year old body that birthed two kids, and saw my mom gently into her death, that carries me around every day with strength and skill, it's not something I need to manage, it's not something separate from me. It's ME! I am this body. Somehow when I remind myself of this, I feel so much more acceptance and tenderness for those rolls and scars and disappearing eyebrows. Thanks so much. This was a lovely read and just what I needed.
At 80 you look old...get used to it. You earned every line. Yes, take care of your skin/self but don't be a slave to it. Just be your best self as you are now. That is more than enough.
Thank you!!
Don’t be a slave to it. This. 💜♾️
FWIW I am a fan of a badass scowl!
I love being this age and just being able to live into these women we can be
Amazing. Relatable and reminds me of that piece I did for GMP when I was in my own 40s about ruined bodies (remember the “ruined tits” column it was in reaction to). I’m almost 54 it seems like I care less and less who thinks I’m ruined. It’s a good thing
We all look our age. The rest is biological determinism, a should of how, body virtue whatever, pride in conformity, a category mistake, towering misogyny in the form of false comfort no one has ever been comforted by.
I love this article!!! Thank you Joanna!! 👏👏👏
This is a really powerful piece and resonates very deeply with me. Having turned 46 yesterday and having lost quite a bit of weight in the last year or so, my mind has been on my body in a way that it hasn’t since I was that insecure girl walking along - funnily enough - Robertson blvd.
I longed to be chic, to be cool. Tried so hard to be a club kid, tried even harder to fit into my best friend’s Guess wardrobe, tried so hard to give myself an identity. But I failed time and again - I wonder if the whole point of your twenties is to not have the connection, confidence or comfort of having a mind and body connected and not being eternally angry or disappointed in both.
Some of my scars are now my favourite parts of my body - they have a story to tell. Most of my tattoos (there are a few that went rogue) tell a story - the pain I endured to get them, mostly alone, often self-masochistic, the pain was part of the promise that I would somehow understand this vessel id been born into despite how it battled me and I battled it through the years. It’s so sad we spend so long, waste so many precious years awash in abject insecurity, having ourselves, comparing ourselves NEVER BEING ENOUGH!
At 46, I find myself at peace with my body. Although I couldn’t have biological children and, eventually deciding that this was the right path for me, I have found a peace in my bodies imperfection. I have settled into it over the years and the recent weight loss was driven more by health aspirations and less by vanity.
I like to tell myself that. I’m sure that my innate vanity factors in and the mirror is no longer a place I cower away from. I’ve been harsh with my body over the years - tattoos, drugs, drinking, smoking, running, staying awake far past my bedtime. I’ve been more harsh with my self-image. And yet in middle age, I find solace in my body now. My husband thinks I’m beautiful and while I don’t ravish in this validation, it doesn’t hurt. I don’t flinch when I look in the mirror. I have come to terms with the fact that it’s not that fucking important. And I’d rather have a martini than run a marathon.
My body has perseverance, it can tolerate pain - the blows I’ve dealt myself and the blows that have been beset on me by a series of not-so-nice boyfriends. It has been solid and stalwart. It has survived epic car crashes, spinal taps, foot surgery, a meth induced overdose, countless very serious suicide attempts, chronic insomnia, over-eating, under-eating, fever, sunstroke, it has survived. I am not striving for physical perfection or instagram health and good looks. The skin that I am in is a reflection of me and my greatest protector and I have great admiration for its endurance - as I’ve often joked throughout the years - once after I took 42 20mg Valiums and was in some sort of delusional state that the doctors swore I could not have taken all that and sustained life…I have often joked that I have the constitution of a horse.
But that horse is still running. I am always amazed by the sheer magnificence of my body especially as I move further into middle age. At sixteen, I am breathless to see a girl who had absolutely no concept of just how beautiful she was.
“You are beautiful no matter what they say…”
If you’re lucky, you learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself and ask your own body for forgiveness. It’s a bitter pill to swallow - to acknowledge that you spent a great portion of your formative years hating this gift of a body that you were born into. Terrified of having been born into this family that could never really see you. Of being alone and scared and lonely and heartbroken and pitied. Of being worthless.
Of learning to love the imperfection, to set boundaries when it comes to pain, to make a definitive choice to actually see what you’re looking at when you stare coldly into the harsh mirror. You settle into your own body like an old glove, you fill the spaces, you can hold things mercilessly against you or most gently. And you pave the way to an at-first tentative friendship with this body of yours, and then you learn to love it.
And you should make an essay of this!
Looking back I think I accidentally did lol x
Publish it here and tag me! :)
BIG BIG BIG hugs!
What a beautiful piece! As a woman in her mid-twenties, so much of this resonated with me. Trying to fit the beauty ideal is more about the idea of forcing women to submit to punishment and deprivation than to the idea that the beauty ideal is actually something attainable. Thank you for reminding us not to give a fuck.
Thank you for this! I'm hoping that this all changes a bit, and there are more options for you as you age and become my age.
The beauty ideal can be down right dangerous in the wrong insecure hands of a twenty something 💜♾️
This is so beautiful. It resonates so much.
Self-acceptance is a journey I am on—and definitely not an easy one! I find myself battling all the judgments I had when I was young toward other people, which I now direct toward myself. One line strikes me towards the end when you talk about letting everything go. I couldn't resonate more with it. It's funny I am finding this post today because I have just been writing about letting go and stopping fighting reality. The freedom one gets when we let go.. is so so worth the challenge of learning to let go. 💜
I love that. We are on the same vibration!
Never heard about 'elevens', but I have always liked them. Women with elevens look sophisticated. When they turn their elevens on—I never found the trigger, but it was always something I said—they look intrigued and puzzled at the same time; it's about the best compliment a man can get. My wife started to have elevens in her mid thirties. It was beautiful. When they showed like bold capitals however, I was in deep shit. So turn them on consciously while you can. Oh, by the way, let's call them elevenses, a short daily recess in honour of female sophistication.