How To Be Hot Forever

Beauty fades. This is true. I myself am fading at an alarming rate. I’m also looking at much older women and thinking how lovely they are. My parents have a picture of my great grandmother in their living room and I’m thinking of requesting a copy of it for two reasons. One is that I loved her and I don’t have any pictures of her. The other is that she is where I’m headed, if I live like I want to live.
She is wearing a little pink suite, gray hair in a bun, grinning. Old, wrinkled, chubby. Unglamourous to be sure. Not nearly so fabulous as I like to imagine myself.
But she is a knock-out. She’s gorgeous. She’s glowing. She’s a reflection of Christ.
I have wondered about plastic surgery and botox and having various things lifted, tucked or removed. I’m not saying I won’t do all of the above at some point. But when I get really quiet and serious about the consequences of the years already lived, I honestly kind of like crow’s feet and smile lines. I like the smiles of people who have raised their babies and loved their spouses and worked for a living. I think they are beautiful.
I know that we aren’t supposed to aim for lines in our skin, dark circles or sagging body parts. But have you noticed the alarmingly astonished looks of the unwrinkled, lifted, tucked and botoxed? They look perpetually smooth and...weird. It’s like a four star general refusing to wear his medals. What’s the point?
I have been sifting through old pictures preparing for my son’s graduation party. I was pretty cute at 18 in my senior picture. I was acceptable in my 20s. I’m closing in on 40 now and I can live with the woman in the mirror, but she ain’t exactly turning any heads these days. Despite the promises of space-age technology, I’m ok with her. I have creases at the corners of my eyes. Eyes that have cried with soul-searing pain and eyes that have cried with nose-snorting laughter. Both have contributed to their present state.
My body having carried two babies and had two c-sections is best kept under wraps and my hair requires a team of experts to achieve it’s natural blonde shade.
My skin is dry and the good people of Oil of Olay will live well as long as I’m around.
But I don’t want 18 back, or 20 or 30. I’m headed for the day when I sit in a pink suit with a bun (but not gray hair, and probably not a bun either) and grin into a camera. I hope I can be one of those wrinkly women who are still beautiful. Because there comes a time when you have to connect the outside with the inside to be truly beautiful. Sorry, all of you young hotties out there. But you don’t have the seniority for beauty yet. You’re pretty, sure enough. But time is coming for you too.
Botox can’t compete with nights on your knees praying for your children to make your eyes shine. Plastic surgery won’t lay wisdom onto your face. Life well lived is the secret to beauty.
That’s what I want. I want to sit grinning into a camera a few years before I breathe my last and look like a cover girl.
Maybe beauty doesn’t fade after all.

1 Peter 3:4
Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.