To miss the way i used to look

[stormywaters]

We aren't young for long, but when we are we take it for granted, never imagine you wont always look the way you do. Anyone else get a bit upset about losing their looks. Sorry for sounding shallow.

I hear you. I looked in the mirror today and was thinking I've really aged. I still feel about 25 and it's often a shock when I look at myself and wonder when the hell did that happen?

I try to convince myself I'm possibly still attractive 'for my age'. But I really have no clue if I am or not. Im just not ready to be so, well, old yet!

Yesterday 15:13 Anicedayforawhitewedding

I think it's all bollocks

I really believe truly beautiful women and I mean inner beauty, age well.

Of course there is something objectively pleasing about youth. But anyone who isn't a shallow ring wraith will always listen, notice and appreciate a mature woman.

I'm 38. I genuinely feel much better than I did twenty years ago. Fitter, wiser, kinder. Because I've grown as a human being.**

Bless. 38 isn't really an older woman - it just feels like it at the time, compared with being, say, 23

Another vote for "I looked better but I wasn't happier"

I get where you're coming from. I'm 49 and have been in a kind of mid life crisis for the past 10 years - I think I've come to terms with it and then it comes back again. The way I'm coping with it now is by doing a sort of Buddhist lite programme i.e. Accepting that everything in life is transitory and nothing lasts. I went through a stage of really struggling with my children growing up - I had this idea in my head that there was a 'perfect time' in my life when my children were little and that I would never be that happy again. I have moved on from that now and enjoy having teenagers. I do think that ageing is harder for women than it is for men.

I was a real beauty when I was young, not so much now I am fat and 55 but for some reason I just don't care. I feel much happier with age, have more friends and hobbies and much more self confidence. I am losing weight because I'd like to make the most of myself.
I think you can still be striking with the right clothes and makeup but 20 again? No thanks, I don't want to be that basket case.

I have never been a looker - a "kindly" relative told me as a teenager that I was lucky I had brains because my sister had gotten all the looks. It never really bothered me as there is a freedom in not being valued for your looks - my beautiful - because she is- and incredibly lovely sister had a hells life experiencing huge amounts of bullying from females and sexual harassment and aggression from males.

I bumbled along in my not beautiful but not hideous way quite happily until after a huge amount of stress and a short illness I developed chronic psoriasis and as a specially bonus psoriatic arthritis as a consequence of barely being able to move I piled on weight, my waist length hair which was my one beauty started coming out in handfuls as my scalp was so badly affected - as a result I had to have it cut much shorter it was the only time I really wept. I will only wear clothes that cover ever inch or my body as 80% of my body is covered in red. sore, ugly patches. I felt disgusting and looked worse. I had no control over my body and it was both miserable and painful.

Perfect strangers will approach me and offer suggestions for treatments and cures because I cannot hide my face or hands, I know they mean to be kind but on bad days it makes me feel self conscious

But I am not defined by how I look I refuse to be. in truth I never have been - yes given the choice I wish my skin was clear and the pain would go but I have never wished for beauty. at my worst both looks and emotionally I met the man I will soon marry who when I am at my lowest and raging about being a fat, useless, crippled leper looks perplexed and tells me I'm perfect, he makes me incredibly happy. I am blessed with good friends who don't care about how I look but how I behave, I have family I love and who love me

I choose to believe I'm lucky many people have worse health issues, many people have terminal illnesses, there are worse things in life than being ugly I have never been hit. hurt, abused, hungry, homeless, poor. I have never suffered tragedy, war, famine or persecution. Being ugly and having a disfiguring illness does not prevent me from appreciating beauty in music, art, literature and in the faces of my friends. It makes it harder to do some things but it does not limit my life.

There is such immense pressure on women in particular to be defined by their looks. I think it warps the way we look at ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and how we value ourselves. I have had friends who are utterly stunning pick themselves to pieces over some perceived flaw that does not exist. You are always more beautiful than you see yourself in a mirror. Looks change but there is beauty in maturing - milk is lovely but so is a good mature cheddar :)

This is one thing where having melanin and good genes helps!
My mum still has a very youthful face despite pressing 60... no wrinkles at all!
I'm 33 and often get asked for ID...

Queenofthebored

I don't worry about my age showing on the outside later in life, I do worry about getting older mentally and not being as fun, outgoing or impulsive etc.

My mum is getting on a bit and she's still the most beautiful person in the world to me!

Not shallow. I can't believe what a fucking mess my life has ended up in either. I'm fat and fucked.

It's the speed of it thats the worst. I was fine until about 36 then the the years of insomnia started showing and the aging process sped up rapidly.

I've aged 10 years since having DD 18 months ago, I think it's the lack of sleep. It's been so worth it though.

I looked absolutely loads younger until post menopause, people still think I'm a decade younger but before that it was almost kinda odd how young I looked. It is genetic in my family for sure all of us look younger. My sister is 65 and when I showed pics of her to my mate they reckoned she looked about fifty. The Clinique lady said my skin was like someone in their mid thirties. I have always hated going out in the sun

Four women in my immediate family dabbled in the world of modellling including me. Now that is a messed up world for sure. My younger sister has an eating disorder and is really messed up about aging because of it.

I didn't appreciate how bloody good I looked when I was younger. I always thought I was too fat, too spotty ect. I wasted it tbh. BUT I'm nearly 40 very podgy and actually very happy. I got myself a new look, new hair style, dey my nails done etc - I feel good and attractive. I'm happy enough. It's very liberating

I look okay at 46, decent skin, only one size bigger than my fighting weight etc but omg would the lord kindly preserve me from the horror of accidentally looking down at my phone in selfie mode. Truly, there is no uglier sight.

@morriszapp I look okay at 46, decent skin, only one size bigger than my fighting weight etc but omg would the lord kindly preserve me from the horror of accidentally looking down at my phone in selfie mode. Truly, there is no uglier sight.

I'm nearly 47 and feel I look far better than I did go my twenties and thirties , in fact I found some old photos taken about ten years ago and I look older than I do now!
In my own opinion I'm hot as fuck 😀

Some days i care more than others. I was thinking recently that the better looking you were as a youngster, the harder it is to loose it all. Kind of pay off i guess. Further to fall.

I'm lucky that at 49 i've managed to stay practically wrinkle free, but do have a bit of a saggy jaw going on, and my brows seem to be slowly descending towards my eyelids. When i'm all made up i don't look much different to how i did 10 or 15 years ago. I think the thing i miss most is waking up in the morning with tousled hair and a bit of the night before's make up on and looking pretty just like that, in a sexy just out of bed way. The make up and hair routine just put the icing on the cake.

Now in the morning before doing the 'routine' i look in the mirror and there's that witch creature from Legend looking back

I have realised that the way to age gracefully is to be a big fat mess in your 20s and then gradually sort yourself out. Otherwise you're always going to look back wistfully.