Today’s guest author is Carole Montgomery. With over two dozen television credits to her name, Carole is a respected veteran of the standup comedy scene nationwide. In addition to her numerous television appearances, Ms. Montgomery has headlined clubs and colleges across the USA and starred in two different Las Vegas production shows. In her ten years as a LAS VEGAS STAR, it is estimated that she has been seen by over five million audience members.
Since its March and Women’s History month, I spent the last few weeks spring cleaning. Let’s face it, you can fight the patriarchy as much as you can, but someone has gotta clean up the closets! Not that my husband hasn’t or won’t help. He does, and he’s excellent at it, but… ladies, you and I both know we prefer to do it by ourselves to understand where things end up because most women are control freaks.
But I digress. I have so much crap in my home. I am always surprised when we DO clean why I was keeping all of it in the world. Plus, I have mountains of other storage stuff in Las Vegas, where I haven’t lived in FIFTEEN YEARS. When I was cleaning out our home back then, I found my son’s UMBILICAL CORD on our way to NYC. It was basically dust at that point. Please don’t say it… I have issues.
I found a box of old photos this time around, and here’s the point (finally) of this piece.
Reminded of “My Body Past”
As I looked through pictures of me when I was younger, there were some photos in there that made me gasp. I was so young, so firm, so… pretty?
Back then, I always thought I had to lose five more pounds. My thighs were too big, and I was ugly. As I sat staring at these pics, I thought to myself, boy, I wish I could go back and tell that young lady she was just fine as she was.
Every woman I know beats herself up all the time for NOT looking like whatever the magazines are shoving in our faces any particular year. Why is THIS still happening?
The need to look young is starting earlier and earlier. Case in point: Kylie Jenner.
She’s twenty-three years old for chrissakes and looks nothing like she did when she was young.
I get it… you want to look “hot”. But completely unrecognizable? Girl, you have some serious self-esteem issues.
When I was young all we had was bulimia to make us look unrecognizable. A few girls got nose jobs but fillers? BTW if you don’t know what fillers are, they are plastic injections to pump up your cheeks. It’s very popular in Los Angeles where there are tons of wildfires. In fact, every time there’s a fire in LA, a reality show star melts.
What Your “Body Future” Wants You To Know
I’ll be 63 in a few weeks, and with age comes wisdom. I am so glad none of this social media was around when I was younger. I know, for instance, had I taken a selfie while Rick Springfield sniffed a line of cocaine off my ass, it would now come back to haunt me. Let’s face it, all my nude photos were taken with a Polaroid camera, so they have disintegrated.
You hear the saying, “Aging Gracefully” a lot when you get to my age and I think I am. Some women fight the process of getting older tooth and nail. I just don’t get it. If you’re in your 60’s you shouldn’t look like you’re 20 and WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU? I earned these wrinkles and I’m showing them off. Who cares if my skin tags make me look like a Google map?
Sometimes I do wonder though, if women feel looking young somehow is to please a man? Which is ridiculous. Trust me, men KNOW you’re older. And most likely they’ll want a young woman who is actually, gasp, young. Men of course are allowed to age and show wrinkles cause it makes them manly. Except of course for Mickey Rourke. YIKES. He’s had so much work done he could be a Kardashian.
I’m proud of my age, my wrinkles, even my shar-pei puppy’s skin. Being older is excellent for self-esteem; you just don’t give a crap about what people think. OR I just don’t remember WHAT I think.
So to my younger self, I wish I could give you the confidence we now have at 63. Don’t worry, they’ll be bumps in the road but you’ll get there.
Also buy stock in Apple.