To think if you’ve been beautiful all your life

[Itssundayiminlove]

It must be very difficult to age?

I was lovely looking when younger, ok older, but never beautiful or even pretty, but nice when younger. I have a friend who I haven’t seen for a few years, she was always absolutely stunning. I’ve just seen a picture of her and there’s a big difference in how she looks now (we’re mid-late 40’s now)

It got me thinking how that must be even harder than for the average person ageing?

A lot of beautiful people are frankly sick of all the unwanted attention they get.

People attribute stuff to beautiful people and make a lot of assumptions about them. It may be a good thing that this ends...

That's good you have your health. It really is wealth, as I've discovered over the past decade.

I was pretty as a younger woman, half Chinese, fairly athletic looks, good skin tone, face and eyes, thick gorgeous hair etc. Certainly attractive, not drop dead gorgeous, but I think men did find me attractive.

Then a decade ago, I had a head injury and post concussion syndrome before being injured by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety. It made me ill from the adverse effects, and gave me a neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia.

Now in the throes of perimenopause too, I'm so fed up with my health and body not working that well. I actually trade my looks in for good health. If I could be 100 per cent healthy again, I'd literally cry and not care if I was broke or unattractive.

Looks are ok, but when that fades, it doesn't matter as much as losing good health. 😞💔

I had a very good looking friend at work. One night we went out together and….my fucking god….the idiots that came up to her. Repeatedly. Even on the fucking tube. It was relentless. I went home thanking the lord I was fine but not ‘hot.’

I was a stunner as a young g woman. I look different now, but I don’t miss the harassment from creeps

It's not hard for me. I found it intimidating to walk into a room and be stared at and have people behaving stupidly around me. Being stared at constantly has probably got to be the worst thing (for me).

I have friends who I would say are suffering because their life seemed to be suspended on the fact they were gorgeous and that became how they defined themselves.

But I was always about what I can achieve or do, rather than how I look.

Now I actually have a disease that is slowly blinding me and deforming my face. and I think fuck it, I was beautiful for 40 odd years, who cares how I look at the end. And this is not just normal aging by any stretch.

I feel the same about myself. I knew I was beautiful and turned heads. I owned it and enjoyed it. I’m in my 40s now and my adult daughter looks exactly the same as I used to. I do tell her to enjoy every minute as I did.

I am still not unattractive but I am in my 40s so that ‘currency of youth’ has gone and I’ll be honest it makes me sad and I miss it and since turning 40 my face has started to ‘fall’ and I hate that (I know that makes me sound like a knob!).

At 45, I look like I've done 10 years on the trawlers, but Ive never been attractive, so don't really feel as though I've lost anything.

Well we all know there are such people so why should anyone pretend if they happen to be the ones! Kinda difficult to have a real truthful discussion otherwise isn’t it?

Totally understand what you’re saying there. It’s hard to reconcile, isn’t it? And it is certainly not something that one can discuss with friends without being seen in a somewhat negative light - oh what a problem to have, eh?!
I can’t help but wonder how much of my (pretty decent) career success was based on looks, though logically I know there was significantly more to it than that.
Now I’m approaching 60, rather overweight, and trying to work out what happened to the last 40 years!

Incidentally, I’m also trying to work out Life & the point of it all.
The all-pervasive sense of low self worth really does continue, but why on earth do we feel like this? Who planted that in our heads? And why!

There are so many 50+ women out there who will never lose their looks as long as they don't mess with what nature gave them. Like Helena Christensen, Stephanie Seymour, Andie MacDowell, Diane Keaton.

Kristin Scott Thomas and Helena Bonham Carter are the two I always think have genuinely gotten more beautiful with age.

I was an ugly ducking in my teens - tall and skinny before it was fashionable, long neck, freckles, sharp cheekbones, never tanned. I bloomed in my 20s and was lovely throughout my 30s and 40s - having more confidence, money, better hair, clothes etc helped. I'm 60 now and still look very well ( thanks to good grooming, nice hair, teeth and clothes plus botox and monthly facials ) .

I'm not setting hearts aflutter anymore but I'm confident in my own skin. A 20 something girl at a party this year told me I was extraordinarily beautiful and that made my day/year/decade!

I was no oil painting but the thing I love most about age is people judge less on looks. I find it very freeing.

I think if you believe you are beautiful it is can be hard to see your looks fade but as a PP said really beautiful people still usually look good at any age- just older.

@jimmyateworld My thoughts exactly! 😂
Also, so many of them in this category. Can’t say I have seen that many bike accident worthy women in real life either! Must all be hiding out on here!

Especially if they earned money for it.

Actually.. We all know a variation of that commercial (usually perfume) where a stunning woman in some slinky dress comes into a room, a seductive music plays, the time stops, freeze-frame with her alone moving through the room and all people (usually men) frozen and staring at her.

I've been in a real life situation like that, except it wasn't a room, but an airport lounge, no music and it was not a woman, but a man. 20s and looked just like young Paul Newman, down to the blue piercing eyes (google him, who doesn't know). He was just walking, but very easily and gracefully. I kid you not, it was surreal. EVERY woman there, down to the last one (me included), whether younger or older, with husbands/boyfriends or not, was STARING at him. I wouldn't believe it, if someone told me. But I was there. It was ridiculous. But true. All other men showed various emotions, from puzzled to irritated/pissed off.

So it happens. I don't know who that guy was and whether he was famous, but he should be.

That was the only time. I do have some seriously beautiful friends and I used to be a model myself, though my face never was extremely beautiful, more striking; and I had and still have the figure, all legs, etc. We did get attention from men, plenty. Harassment too. But nothing like that airport episode. It was like a scene from a movie.

I am glad to be ignored these days. I absolutely hated the attention from men in my younger days. I despised it actually

At least we had it and don’t have to think “what if/if only”

I’ve never thought I was beautiful - which is a pity as I probably wasn’t that bad!
Vividly remember someone wanting to paint me when I was early 20s and I turned them down in case they were a weirdo
Now 60 and comfortable with my looks - I’m more complimented in people thinking I don’t look my age than thinking I’m a stunning beauty!

Sort of. I was slim and above average I guess in the sense it gave me advantages (and disadvantages). Now I'm fat and definitely below!! I don't mind that much as I'm not trying to attract anyone and I sort of feel I'm having a turn at being this way and I had a good run of it. However, also feel a) wish I'd been more confident when I had it and b) would hate to run into any exes now!

@MeliusMoriQuamServire oh god I used to love doing it! Cutting through a room, parting the sea of people. That was fun if you were having a confident day!

@DweetfidiloveFor me it was interrupted sleep for 7 plus years and then going on medication that made me put on weight. Plus hormonal changes gave me rubbish skin and my hair stopped being heavy and shiny. Then you add in general ageing jawline etc.

Can you share links to your Vogue magazine covers I would love to see them! x

Hmmmm it's relative though isn't it. I look back at pictures and think I was "ok" in my teens/20s, better in my 30s but "ok in my 40s" now as I've got more wrinkles. But prefer pics of me now..... maybe it's to do with make up and now photography and i dont mean filters.. 🤷🏼‍♀️

My teen is doing a "new craze" thing of posting pics of us parents back when and when they were "in their prime". She openly says my body slayed in my 30s (after children) but I look more gorgeous now I've grown into myself....but i don't really look any different from 17.

Makes me wonder how my "stunningly beautiful" (not bias just what I'm told constantly) 17yr old will be in 20yrs.

I do remember the popular girls in school, beautiful.....or at least I thought they were. Now..... not so good as in they don't have the striking look that they had.

This. It’s all about bone structure and that doesn’t fade.

That and good skin. Either looking after it or just genetically good. And I don’t mean skin that’s wrinkle free, we all end up with wrinkles, it’s more about the tone.