The Impossible Math of Aging: Round 17 in My Fight With the Mirror

On navigating beauty standards at 37, embracing my 'mousy' brown hair, and watching capitalism sell me back the same insecurities decade after decade

Look, I know what we're all supposed to say about aging. That it's beautiful. That it's a privilege. That we should embrace our lines and hollows and grays as badges of a life well-lived.

And I believe that. I really do.

And yet.

Here I am, slathering seven different serums on my face at night. Booking laser facials. Analyzing the space between my top lip and nose because apparently "thin white lip theory" means you're an evil person now? (What the actual fuck is that even about?)

It's not that I'm angry. I'm just... tired.

I'm annoyed that I'm even writing about this. But this is what I thought about as I woke up, so I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. We don't need another thinkpiece about how men can age "gracefully" (which is also a stupid term). I don't want to age gracefully. I just want to live my damn life without constant criticism.

I work in magazines, so I witness this contradiction daily. I see products labeled 'anti-aging' like that's even POSSIBLE. Anti-gravity would be more realistic than anti-aging, but consumers are still encouraged to believe that a $95 cream is somehow reversing the fundamental nature of human existence.

I recognize I'm only 37. So technically I'm just getting started in this full-scale battle, but let's be honest — I've been in the junior league since I was born. Every girl has. But I already feel it strong. My eyes feel ancient already when I look at how we're treated.

The thing is, some of my earliest beauty icons were women with visible signs of aging. I grew up idolizing women who looked like they'd lived. Jodie Foster — intense, brilliant, blunt as hell. She always looked like she had better things to do than be ornamental. Same with Mia Farrow — ethereal, yes, but with this quiet defiance under the surface. Her short hair, her fragility, the way she never tried to become more palatable. They were women who weren't afraid to look complicated. To be complicated.

Then there were others who caught my eye over time. Julianne Moore with her luminous skin and that incredible red hair going gray at the temples. Susan Sarandon with her knowing smirk. Viola Davis, whose powerful presence only gets more magnetic with time. Angela Bassett doing that thing only Angela Bassett can do. Shohreh Aghdashloo with that voice that sounds like she's been here a thousand years. Women whose faces had started to hollow out in that gorgeous way that only comes with maturity, whose smile lines told stories of decades of laughter and living.

And I know too that aging looks different depending on who you are. The beauty industry that's trained me to fear smile lines is pushing harmful ideals in a thousand different directions. And let's be clear — my white skin and Euro-centric features already work in society's favor. The rules are different depending on who you are, and I'm aware of that even as I navigate my own version of this mess.

I try to consciously rewire my brain now. Dark circles under my eyes? Edgy. Rock-chic. Kate Moss-coded. Smile lines? Evidence of joy. And those gray hairs that keep multiplying? Future silver fox material. Seriously, I catch myself sometimes genuinely excited about eventually having that stunning silver-white hair that makes people do a double-take when you walk into a room. The kind that says you own every room you enter.

This year I stopped coloring my hair and it has been one of the most freeing things I've done in the last 5 years. I let the beauty industry convince me since I was maybe 13 that I AM STILL blonde. News flash, babe, I'm not. I've got this gorgeous light brown hair that for some reason we call "mousy." Even that name was coined by someone, I'm sure, to imply it's not beautiful. There are lies and tricks around every corner.

But here's what I've learned: my natural "mousy" brown hair is actually beautiful. It's the healthiest it's ever been. I spend $100 every 6 months for a trim and people say it really suits me (even though that on its own is complicated — what suits me is me because it IS me).

All I really want is to live my little fae existence, flitting about in my robe with no makeup, as if sunbeams themselves are carrying me from one cozy nook to another. But then office days roll around and I find myself slathering on foundation and mascara because I read somewhere that women who wear makeup make more money. Another lie, I'm sure, but one I've somehow internalized anyway.

The constant barrage never stops. Another 22-year-old influencer getting "preventative Botox." Another headline about how my neck is apparently betraying me. Another celebrity with a mysteriously frozen forehead insisting "I've just cut out sugar!"

I don't want to shame people who've done Botox or fillers or anything else. That's not what this is about. We're all just trying to navigate impossible standards with whatever tools feel right. This is about the system that profits from our insecurities, not the individual choices we make within it.

This obsession with young women is honestly disgusting. We all know what that's about without me having to spell it out. The way we talk about "baby fat" in your 20s — gross. Like, what does that even imply?

Living through my first full trend cycle has messed me up more than I expected. Watching low-rise jeans come back — no shade, wear what you want — just made something click. This shit is designed to break us. Capitalism is a shapeshifting motherfucker. It convinces you to hate your clothes, your face, your body — not because they’re wrong, but because the system needs you to stay hungry. Every decade, it moves the goalpost. Suddenly your nose is “out,” your lips are “in,” your jawline isn’t sharp enough, your ass is too small — or too big, depending on the week. You can’t win. That’s the point. The game is rigged to keep you spending, fixing, deleting pieces of yourself to chase an aesthetic that’s already being phased out. And the sickest part is: we know this. And it still gets us.

Some days I'm winning this mental battle. Other days I catch myself tilting my head in photos to hide whatever new insecurity the beauty industry has convinced me to develop this week. I don't have answers. Just this daily practice of trying to see beauty where I've been trained to see flaws. Of reminding myself that my face looking exactly like it did at 25 isn't actually the point of being alive.

What I do know is this: I refuse to work my ass off for 40 years and spend it all making myself look how the world wants me to. The most rebellious thing I can do is simply exist in my changing body without apology. To take up space. To not shrink away. To let my face tell the story of my life instead of erasing it.

And on my best days, I can see that my face — with its lines and hollows and shadows — isn't a problem to be solved. It's evidence that I've been here. That I've laughed and worried and squinted into the sun. That I've lived.

But I'm still figuring it out, this balance between resistance and reality. Between fighting beauty standards and just wanting to feel good in my own skin. Between exhaustion with the system and finding small freedoms within it.

I guess that's the real work — not anti-aging, but anti-disappearing. Finding ways to remain visible to myself even when the world would prefer I fade away.

And don't even get me started on body size expectations. That's a whole other rant for another day. Because apparently it's not enough to have a face that defies time — we're also supposed to maintain the exact same measurements we had at 19 while birthing children and sitting through decades of meetings. But I've already used up today's allotment of exhaustion, so we'll save that particular nightmare for later.