I turned forty recently. I’m not one of those freaks who dreads each birthday but my forties have definitely been different. There has been one shift in my forty-year-old-thinking that is so seemingly trivial it is embarrassing to admit. Because of all the terrible things in this world that I should be concerned about, I literally want to roll my eyes at myself for being so shallow as to worry about this. So here it is folks: being forty means I finally have admitted to myself that I’m not the cutest young thing in the room anymore.
Ouch!
I’m okay with it. Truly after the initial sting wore off I really am fine. Because there is something incredibly liberating about being a mature woman. I once read an interview with Brooke Shields where she said that the secret to looking great as you age is embracing the fact that you aren’t going to look twenty anymore. And I agree with her—to a point. I’ve watched enough episodes of “What Not to Wear” to know that trying to pull of the junior section look after a certain age is sad. Like sad-clown sad. But you know, now that I am not a pretty young thing anymore I don’t have to do all the things I used to think I had to do in order to be taken seriously. Starting with my hair.
I haven’t had long hair since the nineties. It’s always been in either a bob or if I got really crazy I’d let it grow out to just touching my shoulders. I wanted to be taken seriously as a professional. I might have been young and everything from my round cheeks to my wrinkle-free skin might have screamed “youngster” but I’d be damned if I was going to rock a little girl hair-cut to boot. My hair I could control. My hair wouldn’t betray me. But now that I have the age spots, wrinkles, and ten (okay twenty) extra pounds as well as age on my side I’m growing my hair out. Like Rapunzel long. I have awesome hair and I’m sick of chopping it off. So guess what? I’m not going to anymore.
And if I feel like rocking a snakeskin print blouse or shoes with faux leopard fur heels to the office that is happening too. Because I’m not young and I’m wearing it because I don’t know better. I’m wearing it because I’m old enough to know better and I’m doing it anyway. So suck it professional dressing. I’m ready to embrace being super sassy with my office attire.
Forty means I get to be me—not the imagined grown up version of me. And that is a thing of beauty.
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