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I have never had an antipathy for the markers of age on my body, but as I become more ok with no longer being forced a future where my body is deemed "female", it's become even easier to treat the lines, and grays, and wrinkles with grace.
So much, aging for women, is meant to be, or is presented as a bitter grief; we are supposed to believe that old age is a kind of power or status slipping thru your wrinkled hands.
I know this is two pronged:
- the internalized misogyny seems like it should be fairly obvious, the mentality people have towards women's bodies and age is ... gross to say the very least. & of course has so much to do with the ability of patriarchy to control youth & the inexperienced as pliable. For me, as I did not value my identity as a woman, I tried to derive value from the runoff. being a woman, there can be a certain kind of pretty-privilege, the attention, the desirability (a double edged sword mind you), but I've always believed in making the best of your situation, and if I could be hot or desirable or get attention I liked because I was performing "pretty, young, & woman" right then I'd take it. so losing young, was an interesting shift, you feel the way people treat you change, it's odd, comforting, scary, and makes you so sad for younger you & other young women.
- the second is harder. I realized I wanted to start transitioning because I went to a show for work. I sat and talked with Douglas McCombs backstage:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Doug_wikipedia_photo.png
He was dry, and funny, and knowledgable, he had great, but simple style. and all of a sudden I realized, when I get old, I want to look like this. I'd thought my inability to conceptualize of my own old age was just a symptom of my life-long suicidality.
But
looking at this man, realizing I was jealous, realizing I was in love; not in love with him, but with an idea of the 60+ year version of myself that I could see reflected in him.
and now, when I see my crows feet, the grays slowly creeping up my temples and onwards, I see them on the face of a man, the man I want to be, and they're a site of joy, of hope, of a future I can finally see, a future I am finally creating, subsuming a past I've pushed thru.
