As I’m inching closer to forty I’m starting to feel more comfortable in my skin. I’m owning my lines, the years I’ve lived, from the inside out and on the outside with products that help my grooves glow.

 

As I’m inching closer to forty I’m starting to feel more comfortable in my skin. I’m owning my lines, the years I’ve lived, from the inside out and on the outside with products that help my grooves glow.

I’m still a good, almost, year away. It feels surreal and strange and fake to say, “next year I’ll be forty.” But it also feels kind of freeing. Like I’m finally going to fly. Without staring back for approval, to see if I’m doing it just right. Without looking side to side to see if I’m in line with others. I feel like I’m going to fly at my own pace, soar at my own speed, stick with my flock, return to the nest I’m building. Again, again, and again.

Maybe this is what Emily Dickinson meant when she said,

“Hope” is the things with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all – “

I feel hopeful. In the midst of hard things, hurts, and forty-year-old real life problems; I feel hopeful. On the contrary, for most of my thirties I felt hopeless. Featherless. Bare.

But these past six months, I’ve been hearing the tune that the bird chirps, that the robin sings: Hope.

I’ve been deconstructing nests I’ve busied myself building. Sticks and mud and feathers (past hopes). Some blew away in storms and others I’m unweaving one piece at a time

Whether feather or skin, I’m becoming comfortable with me. Me as I was. Me as I am. Me as I will be. Comfortable with who I was made to be. And comfortable with a truth, that made me itchy for years . . . I cannot earn love or approval. I can’t work hard enough for it. I can’t be good enough for it. Comfortable with the other muddy truth that, who others are and who they are not, does not define me.

Untangling these ties is making me more at home with myself. Even though it doesn’t smooth the wrinkles. Even though my skin is getting looser by the day and the lines are etching and grooving, like an ebb and flow, alongside my smile and eyes. Making patterns and drawing a map of the life I’ve traveled so far. Happy times. Hard times. Joy. Sorrow. Pain. Pleasure. Life. Death. No two wrinkle ever the same.

I’m learning to take care of the skin that I’m in. To preen my feathers. To groom. To shower my soul in fragrant truth. To soak it in love, hope, grace, and peace. And to follow with a slathering of creams and things. Self-care, I’m finding, is for the inside and the out. Hand in glove. Glove in hand. They go together. When I take care of this body, I take care of this soul. When I take care of this soul, I take care of this body. So I give my skin a drink and I feed my soul. Two birds of a feather.

I’m coming to accept that I can’t stop the grooves, I can only make them glow. So, I’m caring for the grooves, the years I’ve lived, from the inside out and on the outside with a little help from products that protect, nourish and bring out a glow.

Recently, I decided to try a new foundation (accordingly as I’m building a new foundation for my nest), “Youth Liberator Serum Foundation.” It gives me a little more coverage. The kind you need when you are nearing forty. The name, maybe, says, it all, “Youth Liberator.” I can’t turn back the hands of time, but I can liberate my younger self that still lives inside of me. My true self. You know, the self you were once never afraid to be, because you never knew any other self than that. Uncovering that self, smooths over every groove and conceals what needs concealing.

With torn apart nests, I’m at home with myself.

I’m liberating my youth.

I’m preening my feathers.

I’m hopeful in the grooves and wrinkles of time.

If you are looking to make your grooves glow, to take care of the skin you are in (or if you just love a good beauty product) here is a mix of new ones I’m trying and a few I’ll keep on buying:

SiO Beauty / For your décolleté . . . if you are a side sleeper (like me). So innovative.

GLOV / On-the-go makeup remover. So natural, just add water.