The other day, I was at a makeup store, grabbing some white eyeliner for experimentation. The woman at the checkout was all of about 20-something, and had absolutely perfect skin (or at least the makeup to make it look that way). She suggested that I might like to come to their upcoming event in a couple of weeks. Free facials! Well, who doesn\u2019t love a good facial? Especially a fee one? I was interested. She said they would be offering free advice on products to try. She mentioned one product in particular and said, \u201cit\u2019s great for anti-aging.\u201d… Excuse me? Feeling offended is so rare that I had to stop and examine this… why was I so offended? Do I think I look young? Nope. Then it hit me… I love my wrinkles! I love my age spots and my mature skin texture and the fact that I look just about the age I really am. You have no idea what I went through too earn my bit of grey in my hair, my crows feet and my smile lines. Why would I want to erase that? Hell, yes… I am old enough to love all the badges that I have earned and wear proudly on my face. And I was happy. I was happy to be in a stage of life where I care what I think more than I care what anyone else thinks. I was happy to be my age, and to have the marks of experience. I was happy to be me in this moment, having these feelings and loving myself. How has life marked you?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A personal essay on embracing aging, in which the author examines her own reaction to an ‘anti-aging’ sales pitch and reflects on loving her wrinkles, grey hair, and mature skin as earned marks of experience and hard-won self-acceptance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1510,1506,1514,1515,1513,1512,1508,1516,1509],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary","tag-age-spots","tag-confidence","tag-experience","tag-loving-me","tag-obsession-with-age","tag-products","tag-skin","tag-the-marks-of-time","tag-wrinkles"],"acf":{"recommend_blurb":"For anyone wrestling with aging and self-image, a candid reflection on choosing to value the marks of experience over the cultural pressure to look younger.","citation_snippet":"Dr. Kathryn Messegee (Kathryn Colleen), \"Why I Love My Wrinkles,\" https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/why-i-love-my-wrinkles\/","topics":["growth","health","essays"],"related_book":"","buy_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7538,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions\/7538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}