Get off my lawn!

Dear Beauty Industry:

I do not want to look 10 years younger. I do not want to peel away the layers of my skin as though I'm ashamed of feeling, of having feelings and thoughts and ideas. I do not want a mate whose ego and social standing swell in inverse proportion to my apparent age.

I like my laugh lines, my frown lines, my incipient crow's feet. I like wrinkling my nose for many reasons, and I know that someday it will stay that way. My own wise mother told me so, and she of the gray hairs wouldn't lie.

I will grow old and wise and not ashamed as the years mark me. I will grow old not just gracefully, but exuberantly, my head thrown back to see the sky, my bye-bye arms waving hello and goodbye, my tattoos faded and sagging into the folds of my skin.

Yes, you've managed to hit some weak spots in the past. But did you know that apple cider vinegar works as well for rosacea as a covering foundation? Better, in fact, as it evaporates instead of congealing into my pores. Did you know that everybody gets stretch marks and ass hairs and yellow teeth? Do you realize that real people, true people, accept these things about each other? Do you think about any sort of social responsibility, the millions of dollars wasted on empty promises bottled and labeled so deceptively?

Beauty Industry, you probably aren't going to go away on your own. You will not quietly bow out of our lives, contribute all profits to homeless shelters or AIDS research or scrubbing the oil off manatees. I understand that. And I am sad, but I revel in the frowns and consternation squinches of my forehead, because they are yet more proof that I am a thinking, living being who is growing wiser every day. In a few years maybe one or two of these lines will have settled for good, and I can point to it and say, "This wrinkle is from when I decided to tell a whole industry to fuck off and die," and my grandkids will giggle because Granny cussed, and will bury their heads in my big, soft tummy and squeeze my mid-back fat rolls, and know that they are beautiful.