To ask if you've mastered the art of not feeling bad about an ageing face

[CurdinHenry]

I spend too much on vanity and think it would be sensible to roll it back and stop thinking about it (I'm soon to turn 45). Obviously physical health is important but I mean the Botox/etc side of things.

HOWEVER my eyelids bother me and so will my everything else when it all eventually starts to go natural. I'll still dye my hair forever unless Armageddon happens in my lifetime.

I think the forties are an age of power and I am so pleased with my career and everything else so I want to stop being weakened by this one thing.

In situations like that, I always think of a killer retort some hours afterwards. I think the French call it l'esprit de l'escalier 😂

Thing is, that person probably isn't wrong. I do have droopy upper eyelids. Other thing is, I don't mind them. Though they're just on the verge of obscuring my vision slightly, if I look upwards. So maybe I'll get something done about them if that problem gets worse.

I'm obviously a feminist. I don't think women have to want to do this sort of thing but I want to do it and why shouldn't women do what they want.

Loads of things but of particular relevance here is being liberated from the latest manifestation of "societal norms" that seek to keep women fearful of aging, for example.

Spending time and money on medical "improvements", not to mention fueling anxiety & distress about how you look and present to the world, to try and avoid totally natural processes such as aging is a feminist issue. These ideas about our face & bodies all work against self acceptance. They create anxiety around how a women looks, and encourage women down expensive and invasive paths that very rarely if ever achieve what is being sold.

The OP talks about being weakened by her vanity. Getting more invovled with feminism however you choose to, engaging with feminist ideas and perhaps thinking specifically of our cultures "beauty standards", how they originate in capitalism and partirarchy, pushed on us via the current iteration of social media and social pressure from both women and men could be useful to the OP in what she is struggling with.

It certainly helped me navigate my 40's & 50's.

reread your OP - you are saying this isn't what you want.

You are asking other women how they deal with aging without wanting botox etc and continue to feel good about yourself. As you requested, I've shared an opinion in response to your OP.

Or have I misunderstood?

If it was really what you wanted why do you feel weakened by it? Just own it.

I'm not happy with my face and neck at all. At 64 Im off for a facelift at Nords in Lithania in autumn.
I feel young and I want to look how I feel. Im not ready for old age yet.
Im not in a relationship, neither do I want one. Im doing this for me.

But you’ve started a thread about how you don’t want to do it!

You said it was in May previously?

So you don’t wear make up @RobinEllacotStrike ?

Do you tell your husband about the treatments @CurdinHenry ?

Yeah it got cancelled because Im anaemic. Thank goodness I had my blood tests before I went out there! My GP agreed to send me to the iron transfusion clinic and do some tests as this happened before my hip replacement also. I dont seem to absorb iron pills. They will only do surgery if your iron levels are normal so I have to rebook once Ive had my transfusion.
I was due to fly out tomorrow so Im gutted but better safe than sorry.

oh I do love a bit of lippy though most days I don't wear makeup.

But when I do wear make up I don't struggle with it, or feel at all weakend by my choices.

The OP’s issues aren’t related to a lack of feminism. It is clear that deep rooted and goes back to being called and feeling ugly thought her childhood and adolescence.

Ooh don’t say that though as some posters get very arsey if you suggest that 🙄

@basoon snap 😆