Attention-grabbing headlines from our favorite magazines cry out, “Younger Skin in 10 days,” “Turn Back the Clock” and “Five Products that Will Make You Look Younger, Instantly.” Our beauty-obsessed culture drills the message that unless you want to look like a Shar Pei, it is important to keep your pores tight, faces bright, and skin hydrated and moisturized. We spend unspeakable amounts of money on anti-aging products, facial peels and laser treatments hoping to strike gold and find the cure-all for our wrinkles, age spots and spider veins. Unrealistic? Completely! Yet, we continue to happily spend, duping ourselves into believing Dr. Perricone will help keep us looking hot. As we get older, we may start to feel lost, empty, invisible or like yesterday’s “it” girl. It becomes challenging to stop men dead in their tracks, or even stop them at all. Our jeans don’t fit like they used to, our hair isn’t as thick and lustrous as it once was and we run to our colorists like clockwork to cover the grays on our head. We don’t think there is a hair color product that makes the perfect hue for our short and curlies, but if there is a “hoo-ha” product, hooray!

All too often, we look in the mirror and see the toll that time has taken. We mourn our youth and all its’ trappings. But the fine (and not-so-fine) lines, age spots, stretch marks and varicose veins tell the story of our journey. From our mother’s first embrace of us to our first embrace of our newborn, to restless nights worrying over loved ones, playing in the sand, dancing in the rain, crying and laughing, our wrinkles are a testament to how hard our bodies have worked to create the rich, beautiful mosaic of our lives. Yet it is rare for us to recognize our unique beauty of today. We often wish we looked younger, making it difficult to fully recognize all that we embody. But aging is inevitable. It is the cycle of life. As soon as anything comes to life, the cycle of aging begins.

Imagine yourself ten years from now looking back at the “you” of today. What do you imagine you would see? Why wait until then to embrace all that you are now? Just like trees shed their leaves in the fall to perpetuate the cycle of life for spring, what outdated beliefs about aging can you shed so that you can appreciate all that you are today?

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