I wrote a piece on my personal blog in 2014 about real beauty. I was of the firm opinion that real beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. I won a prize for the blog. 9 years have gone by. Today I would say real beauty really lies in your own eyes. It’s how you look at yourself. Of course the compliments from the hubby are always welcome.
Sharing the piece below.
………………
I don’t know when they crept up on me, these lines. Across my forehead, around my eyes, on my neck. I looked mournfully at my dressing table adorned with jars and bottles of various creams, each promising younger looking skin, each committing that my lines would lessen in a particular time frame.
Bah, I thought, creeping an inch closer to the mirror. Yes, that third line under my left eye was distinctly deeper. Perhaps I could stop frowning. And smiling.
I set my face into an expressionless mask and stared at myself. No, that looked decidedly silly, I thought and sighed.
Yes, but look at it this way. I’m living a full, rich life. Each laughter line denotes the innumerable friends that make me happy, each frown line denotes the struggle overpowered to reach whatever little success I have achieved till date.
Double Bah!
Whom am I fooling? These are lines, people. All over my face. Accompanied by funny looking brown spots. Age spots – they call them. And really, television is not helping this baleful situation at all. I read somewhere that ageing is the new fairness and wholeheartedly agree with that statement.
Every cream worth its salt is trying to tell you that you start aging at 20. 20? I thought life began at 20. At 20 I remember sweeping out of the house with just a lipstick and oodles of confidence. 20 was definitely not the time to start worrying about age spots and fine lines.
I sighed some more and looked at the various jars and bottles again. Whose turn was it today, anyway? Was it the anti wrinkle cream or that new spot corrector that I picked up? Really. How many creams could one apply on one night. At this rate, I would shortly require an excel sheet to manage my various cream schedules.
I glanced at the man sitting on the bed, deeply engrossed in some totally uninteresting book on financial derivatives and sighed even more. Was he too going to start fiddling with his blackberry or, horrors, start reading his mail when out for dinner with me like that man in that ad?
I looked at him- this man who 14 years back decided that I was the sun, moon and the earth all put together.
There was no harm in checking current status.
You know, I said, I’m getting all these lines around my eyes. I think I’m beginning to look really old.
He looked at me with a deeply anguished expression. “You are not running off to buy more creams are you?” And promptly buried himself in the book again.
With many more deep sighs I turned back to the mirror…and caught him looking at me contemplatively. “This kickboxing is really suiting you. You look really toned and nice.”
And then he smiled. And just like that 14 years melted away and I was that girl again, sure and confident in the warmth and love of a good man. Real beauty, really, is in the eyes of the beholder, no?
But that does not mean, I eyed the anti wrinkle cream threateningly, that you are off the hook. You had better perform or you will be replaced
Dipika Singh, She Means Business