Friday, June 01, 2012

friday forte: ages and stages part II

fine silver and freshwater pearl necklace
fine silver wire beads - patina added & aged to perfection to give a golden glow
Having great fun describing my work internship for the summer. I'm loving it, will talk enthusiastically about it to all and sundry then realise I've lost the majority after the word 'intern' falls from my lips.

  1. Yes - an intern can be older than 30.
  2. Career change is allowed after 30 too.

The world revolves around youthfulness, apparently.

I am in danger of turning into a female curmudgeon with the onslaught of youthful media messages hitting me daily; 36 years old is the ideal age for a woman (???) and heavens, we should dress young no matter how old (but not mutton-as-lamb) according to most clothes shops. According to my local rec centre, students are younger than 25-years-old (so I cannot get a discount rate with my college card anymore) and please don't get me started on the youthfulness of yummy mummies as portrayed on That Recent TIME cover.

Maybe it's just that I am in the second half of my life, where everything is theoretically a downhill slide to the grave, that makes me acutely aware of how youth-obsessed and - oriented society is. At the risk of sounding like said curmudgeon, why do we need to stay young? Why do we need to look slim and obsess about the normal weight-gain of ageing? What's so bad about wrinkles, or grey hairs? Should I care about not wearing Spanx and revealing contours? It's because it's not youthful, we're told.

Even our genitals are meant to look forever young. Thanks to the cultural promotion of porn as the norm, we should all aspire to a pre-pubescent look down below, shaved bald and untouched by gravity, childbirth, intercourse, or cotton gussets. Luckily (?) help is at hand, with cosmetic creams to zap back that youthful glow and a plethora of surgical manoeuvres to nip/tuck a floppy vulva back into line and take in the slack of ageing vaginal walls.

Is there nothing that I can leave to age or look natural these days, even if I promise not to take it out at parties?

ebb and flo by pomo mama design click to shop pomo mama design online!