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Invisible Signs of Aging
Karen Marcus
I noticed my first wrinkle in college. At 19, this discovery came as a shock. I exclaimed to my roommate, also 19, "I have a wrinkle! Look at this! Look at my wrinkle!"
"Where?" she demanded, getting up from her desk and placing her face about half an inch from mine. I could smell her hair gel.
"Here, here!" I desperately pointed to a barely-visible line just below my eye. I had been looking in a magnifying mirror.
"I can't see, your finger's in the way." I immediately dropped my hand to my lap. I needed validation, confirmation, yet hoped for denial. "Oh, yeah," she said, uncertainly, and went back to her math homework.
I stewed. It could only mean one thing: I was a little bit less attractive than I had been the day before. Here I was, having just reached adulthood, and already things were starting to go downhill. It could only get worse. I would have to be ever-vigilant. I would have to start using night cream, day cream, anti-wrinkle cream, vanishing cream, upper eyelid cream, lower eyelid cream, and any other cream the cosmetic counter ladies could sucker me into.
I had been getting older from the moment of my birth; however, I was now getting older in a negative sense. Older, as in, "Just wait 'til you get older," the "older woman," the "older generation." Older.
A similar scenario ensued when I later noticed my first gray hair. Going about my regular hair styling routine before the bathroom mirror, I saw something on my head pick up the light in an unusual way. My hair is brown, but there are a few lighter colored ones up there too. "That must be what this is," I reasoned to myself. But Myself was not convinced. Upon closer inspection - that necessitated yanking the threadlike protuberance out of my scalp - I saw it was what I had feared, except that it was not actually gray; it was silver. Silver? I stared at it in disbelief for several minutes before conveying it to my live-in boyfriend.
"Look."
"What is it?" He was slightly annoyed; I had interrupted his work on a project.
"A hair." Couldn't he see that this was important?
"Your hair?" He looked at me worriedly.
"Not anymore!" I exclaimed defiantly. Those silver-grays thought they were so smart. Well, who could yank whom out of whose scalp, huh?
"Is it . . . ?" He didn't want to be the one to say it.
"It's silver," I said, in awe, unable to draw my attention away from the specimen.
"Wow."
"Yeah." After contemplating the wonder for several minutes longer, dreamily lacing it between my fingers, I finally threw it into the trash. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. For days, weeks. I had no control over this process, this aging, when I had always before had control over my looks. (How easy was it to change the color of my lipstick or get a new outfit?) It was a troubling and uncomfortable feeling. And how could I, who had so much yet to accomplish in life, be going gray?
Of course, I wasn't going gray; I just had a gray hair. There is a difference. It would be several years before I'd get another one. And another and another and another, until, eventually, I stopped yanking them out. Eventually, I just let them hang out there, among the browns and lighter browns, hoping they'd all get along.
In time, I began to see my first silvery filament, my first wrinkle and, yes, even my increasingly gravity-afflicted breasts, in a new way: I had earned these badges. And what had I done to earn them? I had lived. My "fine lines," for example, had resulted from a lifetime of love, fun, friendship, entertainment, and occasional drunkenness, as well as the sorrows - deaths, losses, disappointments - that inevitably accompany the joys of life. I'd laughed and cried and my face had become etched with my experience.
My silver tresses have emerged as I've navigated the romantic, professional, and personal waters of adulthood. And my now-low-slung bust? Well, let's just say the Girls have led a full and productive life and deserve a rest from having to be perky all the time.
The ads suggest that we "erase the visible signs of aging." But the lessons I've learned, the goals I've reached, the problems I've solved, the demons I've confronted, the loves I've found, and the courage, strength, and wisdom I've gained as a result - the "invisible signs of aging" - are eminently valuable. And I don't mind letting them show.
© Karen Marcus
Karen Marcus is a writer, Registered Yoga Teacher and Certified Reiki Practitioner. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.
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