Morgan Mann

I am old, or so I am being told. Apparently, I have been old since I turned 36. That was when I first noticed a wrinkle on my face. Or maybe I have been old since I turned 38. That was when I first noticed a grey hair. Or maybe I only recently got old, when I noticed how many advertisements are out there exhorting the benefits of anti-wrinkle cream and hair color with grey coverage.

In the 80’s, it was Botox. After that, I don’t know what it was because I was busy living my life and, apparently, getting old by earning new wrinkles and grey hairs. Now, in 2010, a woman can spend hundreds of dollars on face cream to minimize her wrinkles. Do men not get old and wrinkly? Where are the ads for the masculine wrinkle cream? Men get grey hair, but even Grecian Formula seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth. I realize this is an old argument, but now that I am, apparently, old, it strikes a bit closer to home. This seems unfair to me, but I digress.

Now that I am apparently old, I realize that I like my wrinkles. I earned every last one of them and I deserve the honor and recognition that comes with them. They are my smile lines and tell the world that I am a positive person. I do not want to get rid of them, but I am being continuously bombarded with advertisements telling me I should. Those advertisements are beginning to annoy me.

The same can be said of my grey hair. It tells the story of my life even more so than my wrinkles, as I am a cancer survivor. I finished treatment this past January and am now in remission. Before I started chemo, my hair was wavy and reddish brown with a bit of grey. While in chemotherapy, I lost all of my hair. Oh, what a freedom that was!!! Now that my hair has grown back, I was astonished to find it is completely grey and white, as in “Old”. However, I have had strangers stop me and compliment my new hair (even though it, apparently, makes me old). I must be honest now and admit that I did have it colored. I had it colored because every time my daughter looked at me, it reminded her of how sick I was. I did not color it to appear younger. I colored it avoid causing my daughter unnecessary pain.

I love my wrinkles, and I love my grey hairs (even though I can’t see them right now). I have even learned to love my little Buddha belly (but that is a whole other story!). How dare complete strangers tell me I am less than I am because of the way I look! I can only hope that the market that the advertisers are targeting is able to stand their own ground and recognize there are right reasons to change one’s appearance, and there are wrong reasons. I am not old, and I am not young. I am exactly where I am, and I am glad.

How do you feel about the penetration of anti-aging products in the millennium?

Photograph Credit:
Sabrina Segal