“Anti” Anti-Ager
I remember when I was the youngest person in the “room.” After all, I started my career in beauty when I was just 16, working at the Chanel counter at Bloomingdale’s on evenings and Saturdays. And then at 21, I joined the Estée Lauder Companies, where I was again the “kid.” As my young age and lack of experience sometimes caused me to feel insecure, I couldn’t wait to be as smart and confident as my boss and peers. I looked up to my superiors and elders with awe, admiration and emulation.
Fast forward nearly 40 years, and while still at Lauder, I was more often than not, the oldest person in the room. And while I now had the years and the experience, I sometimes felt insecure nevertheless! While I considered my age an asset, a badge of accomplishment to be proud of, the entire beauty industry was entrenched in the Millennial mission of anti-aging. Protecting women from aging (the enemy), versus celebrating them for their natural mature beauty, and for their experience and wisdom. And for the most part, no longer marketing to them, so that neither my peers nor myself “saw” ourselves in any beauty context. Not in marketing plans, magazines, press mentions.
But on the other hand, the millennials, now in full force in the company, were actually looking up to me, for my wisdom and experience. I was now the elder. And like my elders when I had started out, I still had relevance, a ‘cool’ factor, and plenty to contribute.
How the tables had turned. In what seemed like a really long four decades. Yet, in the blink of an eye. A cliché for sure, but a truism. There’s a song called Years, by Beth Nielsen Chapman, that contemplates this contradictory sense of time, with the lyrics:
“And I thought about years
How they take so long
And they go so fast”
When you’re in the thick of it, you’re impatient for time to move faster. When you look back, you can’t understand how it went so fast.
All this to say that I am an avid anti anti-ager. I’ve earned the right to be so. I don’t subscribe to denying my age, but to owning it and enjoying it. And being proud of it. It’s what’s got me here.
And most of all, I’m trying really hard now to live in the moment. To be more mindful of the here and now. Not wish for things to happen faster. And not dwelling on the past. As philosopher and author Jon Kabat-Zin says “life only unfolds in the moment.”
Or as my favorite childhood philosopher, Winnie the Pooh, asked Piglet: “What day is it?” “It’s today” squeaked Piglet.” “My favorite day” said Pooh.
Am I showing my age? I’m proud of it!
