The nature of beauty

It happens to every one, you have to acknowledge you're aging.  Some people do it gracefully.  I'm not in that category.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be 42 in a few weeks.  I have had a very rich life and that is the true measure of a life.  Not wrinkles.  Wrinkle-free skin is not the measure of a good life.  Regardless of what the beauty industry wants me to believe, that eternal beauty is just a pot of face cream away, humans do age. Yet I have to keep reminding myself of this fact. 

Last week my brother's girlfriend called me "ma'am". I was appalled.  Actually, in truth, it was my vanity that suffered, deep down I know I look, more or less, 41 and 11/12ths.  I'm aging.  It shows.  That's natural. 

Which brings me to middle age.  In eight years I'll be 50!  As a child I used to think that to die at 30 would be perfect, as then I'd have lived the beautiful part of life - such is the logic of seven year old.  Embracing the years beyond 30 becomes more about attitude and less about the surface beauty for me.

My definition of beauty is changing: I now find less beautiful people more interesting, more captivating.  When I started exploring this, I realised that it is because beauty can blind me to what lies below.  It is beauty of character that really matters. 

Years ago I had a vision in which a sage said, "True beauty is how beautiful others feel when they are with you."  That says it all.