"Ew, she looks so old" (ESSAY) (Patreon)

Wow, this cartoon really hit me in the heart.

Intellectually, I reject the white-thin-young-cis-etc-etc beauty standards and I do see the human beauty that exists outside those restrictions. In my teens and twenties I remember judging the women who paid for surgery  to create an artifice of youth. "I'll embrace my age!" I thought smugly. "I'm so much more enlightened than these self-hating women! These poor, brainwashed victims of the patriarchy!"

And now, here I am.

As my body glomphs into middle-age, it's been surprising to me just how self-conscious and sad I feel about these physical changes that aren't even apparent to anyone else yet. The way the fat on my cheekbones is sliding down to my jawline. The ripples blooming across my ass and thighs. The weight hanging on the underside of my forearms. None of it is particularly noticeable to anyone else yet, but I can see it, I can feel it. I can feel my body changing along with this constant lack of  energy. Recently, I asked a somewhat older friend if he felt tired all the time when he hit his 40s and without even pausing to think about it he said "Oh, yeah. Constantly."

More than being confronted with the reality of aging, my changing body is also a stark reminder that I am very clearly my mother's daughter.

My body is beginning to sag and ripple and gain in the exact same areas hers did, and she hated those parts of her body. Those features were shameful to her, they announced her failing as a human being.

Of course I have internalized all the messages our culture says about women's aging bodies, but then on top of that I've got a very specific message about the "embarrassing" kind of body my mom had and I will most likely also have, and then there's the whole bonus factor of "I cut off all contact with my mom to escape her poison 13 years ago and now I'm still gunna turn into her anyway."

Most of my life I was convinced that I would inevitably become my crazy mom.  I kept myself  constantly on high-alert for signs of my mental deterioration which would eventually cause me to drive away everyone I love by becoming progressively more unhinged and volatile while firmly believing it was everybody else who was acting crazy. My therapists would push back on this belief. "You're not your mother." they told me over and over. "You can make different choices."

And I have.

I have sought out community and therapy and medication to create a different path for my life.  We both started with the same basic fucked up material and my life today looks absolutely nothing like hers when she was my age. I did it. I made different choices. I broke the cycle. I am not my mother.

And now,

my body

is turning into

hers.

.........................Goddamnit.

There are things I do like about it, though. I like how big my thighs and ass are getting. I think they're thick and fun. I don't love the cellulite, but... maybe I can learn to look at it neutrally. It's not ugly, it's not beautiful, it's just what my skin looks like. My emerging underarm wobble has prompted me to start doing push-ups and reverse dips during breaks from work. The exercise probably won't actually change anything aesthetically, but I am notably stronger since I started (I can do ten push-ups in a row????????) and it turns out the regular physical exertion during the work day actually helps me stay more focused during my time at my desk. As for my face, well. I'm 40. It would look weird to have the cheek-fat-distribution and tightness of a 20-year-old. This is just what I look like now. Get used to it, Erika. This is you.

I made a different choice than my mom when it came to mental health and I have the opportunity now to make a different choice when it comes to how I judge my body.

We are cut from the same cloth, but I am not my mother.

I have my own mind and my own body.

I get to choose how I take care of them.

I choose to be kinder to them.

I choose to nurture them.

I choose to mother them.