This is Me

Last weekend The Hubby's office had its annual holiday party. The theme was "Mad Men," and we were asked to dress appropriately.

I had my local beauty salon do a French Twist, and they helped me with my eyeliner. (How did women in the 1950s and '60s get those "cat tails" to come out even?

Anyhow, I liked the hairdo so much, I swiped an earring off my jewelry-bedecked branches arrangement and slapped it on to take these photos:

My twin reactions were "Yikes" and Wow."

The wrinkles and the silvery hair actually didn't make me flinch. I've lived with them so long, they weren't a surprise. But yikes, where did my top lip go? It used to be so full. And my jawline! *Sigh*. Once it was chiseled; now it's softened. And my skin...where did all those spots come from?

On the other hand...

This is me. This is what 57- almost-58 looks like. I thank my genes for what I have, and I thank my mother and her mother for teaching me that true beauty is ageless, a quality that shines from the inside out.

And I think of one of my favorite quotes, by the American essayist poet Raph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882):

"As we get old...the beauty steals inward."