Growing older Gracefully? Nah.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a website where a woman talks about growing older gracefully now that she’s in her 60’s. God bless her, God bless anyone who can be graceful about growing older…I just don’t happen to be one of them.

I look in the mirror and pull my cheeks up a little and think, Yeah, that’s how I should look. But  you can’t walk around looking like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone all the time, so I just dealt with it.

But it does a number on you. I just didn’t feel cute anymore, and when you don’t feel cute, you’re less outgoing because you feel like no one will respond. This was quietly reinforced by the fact that I seem to have turned invisible sometime in my 50’s.

I remember quite vividly when I noticed my new invisibility.

I’d walked blocks and blocks down Broadway in New York City and not one person noticed me. Not one! I could have robbed a bank and totally gotten away with it. That was really sobering for me. It was the first time I realized I was getting older.

I wish I was more like those women who can just let their hair turn gray and be cool with it. I’m not. Or the ones who smile and say, “I’ve earned every one of these wrinkles.”

No, I’m the woman, who when she accidentally sees her own face in the camera of her phone, screams, “Aaaaaah!” as if a monster has been sighted.

I’ve earned my wrinkles too,  but I’m very happy to let go of some of them, which is why I decided to go ahead and have the Liftique procedure. Liftique is a non-surgical, procedure that can help you look a little younger by stimulating the collagen under your skin, so your skin looks lifted and a little tighter.

I found out about it because Liftique advertises on the radio stations owned by the company I work for. I write their commercials and, apparently I’m so good,  I convinced myself. The more I wrote about it, the more I thought…hmmmmm, wonder if I should do this?

I finally decided it was a good idea, so I took the plunge and had it done over President’s Day weekend. I did it on a Thursday afternoon and was back at work the following Tuesday. Aside from a tiny bit of bruising that I hid with make-up, no one even knew.

I told a few people, but the lid got blown off when Liftique asked me to do a testimonial for them, which turned into a commercial, which apparently runs incessantly here in Los Angeles because all my friends have called me about it. So, I figured it was time to just tell everybody and post a link to it. Why not?

Am I glad I did it? Yeah, I am. It left me feeling better about my neck, which was starting to look too much like the scarecrow’s in the Wizard of Oz. And when you feel better, you’re a little friendlier, a little more outgoing and a little more fun. And when you’re single and in your 60’s, you need all the help you can get.

When I was in my 20’s,  I never thought I’d do something like have surgery or any kind of procedure, but that changed after I worked in a plastic surgeon’s office. I saw people come in the door, self conscious — and leave a totally different person. The surgery changed them slightly on the outside, but the  biggest difference was clearly on the inside.

And I think anything that can give a person back her or his confidence, is ultimately a good thing.