"Time takes its toll, but not on the eyes"
Everyone ages.
Okay, everybody but [insert your favorite male celebrity here] ages.
Our culture values youth. If the media is any judge, women are most attractive at somewhere between 18 and 22 (well, 14-18 with heavy makeup and air-brushing), with some variation for individual preferences. I suspect that men are probably at their best between 27 and 35. According to this article by Discovery, the difference is much broader between the sexes. Where men continue to favor women under 21, women's favored age ages with them.
I have a slightly less cynical theory.
It might be wishful thinking.
My theory is that there is a difference between men who age while they are in love and men who age while they are single. Because I believe - I hope, I guess - that real love can overcome that desire for the barely legal.
When you age with a person, when they see you every day and when you know where each of the lines on their face came from, and what each silver hair means. When you see yourself in their eyes and they knew you were young, once, and you're a matching pair. . .
But I'm alone, and so each time I meet a person I once knew, I can see in their eyes that I'm a little older than they expected. I'm a little wider, with a few more creases, a bit more silver. My nose and ears are longer. My gums recede.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I love me. I look with some kindness. I know where the grey came from, and I know how that doughnut around my hips tasted, and it was delicious. But nobody shared it with me. These things don't detract from my own beauty, but make it more complex. I can look at men with the same kindness, though it takes some imagination. I don't know where their muscle definition went. I don't know when they lost their hair, or when they realized they weren't getting any taller, but I can value the complexity of their lives.
Aging with someone is to age gracefully, working together, eating together, farming love in the creases of each-other's skin.
Aging alone is watching yourself age in others' eyes by leaps and starts. It is to suddenly become old. It is to age only on the outside, to grow only alienation in the rows and furrows.
How much more cruel, then, to find yourself in a marriage with a person who does not value the love in your silver hair, or the hard work on your callused hands and feet, who, having all the years he could stand from you, still turns back to 21. I would rather age and die alone.
But you, my sisters who have known this, who have aged while nobody was watching or who have aged with the lights off, I think you are beautiful. We will age together.
Okay, everybody but [insert your favorite male celebrity here] ages.
Our culture values youth. If the media is any judge, women are most attractive at somewhere between 18 and 22 (well, 14-18 with heavy makeup and air-brushing), with some variation for individual preferences. I suspect that men are probably at their best between 27 and 35. According to this article by Discovery, the difference is much broader between the sexes. Where men continue to favor women under 21, women's favored age ages with them.
I have a slightly less cynical theory.
It might be wishful thinking.
My theory is that there is a difference between men who age while they are in love and men who age while they are single. Because I believe - I hope, I guess - that real love can overcome that desire for the barely legal.
When you age with a person, when they see you every day and when you know where each of the lines on their face came from, and what each silver hair means. When you see yourself in their eyes and they knew you were young, once, and you're a matching pair. . .
But I'm alone, and so each time I meet a person I once knew, I can see in their eyes that I'm a little older than they expected. I'm a little wider, with a few more creases, a bit more silver. My nose and ears are longer. My gums recede.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I love me. I look with some kindness. I know where the grey came from, and I know how that doughnut around my hips tasted, and it was delicious. But nobody shared it with me. These things don't detract from my own beauty, but make it more complex. I can look at men with the same kindness, though it takes some imagination. I don't know where their muscle definition went. I don't know when they lost their hair, or when they realized they weren't getting any taller, but I can value the complexity of their lives.
Aging with someone is to age gracefully, working together, eating together, farming love in the creases of each-other's skin.
Aging alone is watching yourself age in others' eyes by leaps and starts. It is to suddenly become old. It is to age only on the outside, to grow only alienation in the rows and furrows.
How much more cruel, then, to find yourself in a marriage with a person who does not value the love in your silver hair, or the hard work on your callused hands and feet, who, having all the years he could stand from you, still turns back to 21. I would rather age and die alone.
But you, my sisters who have known this, who have aged while nobody was watching or who have aged with the lights off, I think you are beautiful. We will age together.
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