no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Or I'll just email him this.
http://limitedliabilitygirl.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/nature-also-hates-doing-the-dishes-or-so-i-hear/

^^^ really excellent!

Yay ty!

Why are some physical indicators of aging easier to stomach than others? I'm fine with my wrinkles, more or less OK with my sun spots, I bought bigger pants rather than try to stay at the (under)weight I was in my 20s, but I am rather not liking my softening jaw. It's like the flesh of my face moved down a fraction of an inch over the past month or so, just in time for my upcoming 40th b'day.

I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes I look at my jawline and think "ugh, I'm going to look like my mother." But I love my mother! And I love that she never opted for the knife for anything cosmetic! It's like I'm OK with looking older as long as it is Angelica-Huston older, but not older like normal-people older.

Anyway, I'm back in DC for a week to take care of various errands before the next phase of the Year of the Midlife Crisis, and am remembering how much I love this city and city life in general. I used to think I could do city or rural but nowhere in between; now I know that rural does not suit me for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Good stuff to figure out before you buy a farmhouse in Iowa or whatever.

god yes

the daughter of a family friend had been living in the city for about 10 years, prior to that she had grown up in a small farming town - but had lived in the town part rather than the farm part.
she met a guy and fell in love and moved to a sheep station in the Northern Territory. ie The Outback, captial T capital O.

after about 2 months she was completely miserable. but she stayed there for a couple of years (!) and even had a kid with me which...she's moved back home and is up to her neck in custody insanity and all kinds of mess. extreme example, I mean what she did was beyond rural, that's full on isolation, but to your point, rural life is not for everyone. but it's hard to explain when the scenery is so nice and the people seem so easy going. but if you've grown up in suburban or relatively populated areas, you take all the convenience for granted that you have to forgo for bucolic pastoral loveliness

lol she did not have a kid with me. she had a kid with HIM
O_o

feeling you, quincie - idc about wrinkles etc either, but all the women on my mum's side have turkey necks and/or loose jowls and my jawline has def started loosing definition over the last couple of years (and i'm only - almost - 34!)

Yeah I'm totally cool with some aspects of aging and freaked about others.

I grew up in places ranging from rural as hell to small town and NEVER AGAIN. I'm so happy to be raising a kid in the city.

I'm fat so I never had a jawline to begin with

Lady you have great facial bone structure so stfu (<said lovingly).

you too!

Why are some physical indicators of aging easier to stomach than others? I'm fine with my wrinkles, more or less OK with my sun spots, I bought bigger pants rather than try to stay at the (under)weight I was in my 20s, but I am rather not liking my softening jaw. It's like the flesh of my face moved down a fraction of an inch over the past month or so, just in time for my upcoming 40th b'day.

I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes I look at my jawline and think "ugh, I'm going to look like my mother."

OMG I have thought these exact words repeatedly over the past years only I'm still early 30s :(

http://the-toast.net/2013/12/04/invisible-signs-of-aging/

Haha yes Ive started to do that "pull the skin up at the jawline in the mirror" thing a lot :(

Looking forward to Sudden-Onset Cronery tbh.

I've suffered from occasional early-morning haggery for years.

i have had strong feelings in recent times of truly loving getting older, it's such an excellent surprise. this is not a grim acceptance of an inevitability, it's a cheerful powerful not giving a fuckery. i'm of established middle age now though, the early days of not being young any more had a bit of a twilight feeling of gloom about them.

Hearing but not understanding the language of the stars

I don't know who writes for The Toast but they've snuck some threads of remarkable beauty into their jokey lists.

I believe you, estela! I feel like being on the brink of middle age is a bit more challenging for me bc I'm close to youthfulness still. As in, if only it weren't for that one wrinkle/grey hair/baggy part, I could still be mistaken for 28! Never mind BEING 28, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea found on a large continental mass where they grow a lot of tea, but at some point I know I'll have to relax and stop clutching at whatever I'm still clutching at in a few years' time. (A tube of eyeliner, probably.)

i think when the day finally arrives you of all people will manage the transition very well.

I don't think of myself as someone with wrinkles but I'm sure I have them. It's sad to think that someone would see "wrinkles" before they see ME but I guess it probably happens. Regardless, that's on the viewer, not on me.

I don't know who writes for The Toast but they've snuck some threads of remarkable beauty into their jokey lists.

Most of the ethereal, creepy, weird stuff is Malory Ortberg. She did a parody of "Oh The Places You'll Go" yesterday that was pretty great.

:) :) My plan is too be too busy talking to people to notice until it's already over.

One of the unexpected (to me) pleasures of getting older is the thing that many women lament: becoming "invisible" to men. Once I was clearly no longer a nubile young thang, my interactions with the opposite sex became more comfortable. I no longer have the insecurity that men are acting interested and appreciative of me with ulterior motives; I feel that they are acting interested and appreciative of me because I am (hopefully) and interesting and decent human being. Getting older has meant that I feel less conscious of being female and just feel like a regular ole person most of the time.

Being a person sounds great!

Yeah I should have put some sort of emphasis on "most of the time," because as long as I look female I'm still going to be treated poorly by some.

i've heard about that (becoming invisible) and i feel like i have had a weird experience of this.. my self perception that i developed in early high school was of being v unattractive, just a tall ugly weirdo with glasses who wasn't feminine enough etc. and it stuck with me for a very long time; i was the target of a lot of mean personal criticism from my mother and had this baseline assumption that there was something wrong with me

in the past few years i started to take a little more care about how i look & gradually started to notice how totally everyday interactions with guys were often.. different than before, like i had superpowers i didn't know about

and i also started to think maybe it wasn't a bad thing to have been almost completely oblivious to this from ages 15-30 - i sincerely believed they were only interested in me as a friend or colleague - it was kind of chill and comfortable being oblivious

One of the unexpected (to me) pleasures of getting older is the thing that many women lament: becoming "invisible" to men. Once I was clearly no longer a nubile young thang, my interactions with the opposite sex became more comfortable

Sadly if youre 40+ and still single like I am, this *isnt* a good thing :(

i've heard about that (becoming invisible) and i feel like i have had a weird experience of this.. my self perception that i developed in early high school was of being v unattractive, just a tall ugly weirdo with glasses who wasn't feminine enough etc. and it stuck with me for a very long time; i was the target of a lot of mean personal criticism from my mother and had this baseline assumption that there was something wrong with me

in the past few years i started to take a little more care about how i look & gradually started to notice how totally everyday interactions with guys were often.. different than before, like i had superpowers i didn't know about

and i also started to think maybe it wasn't a bad thing to have been almost completely oblivious to this from ages 15-30 - i sincerely believed they were only interested in me as a friend or colleague - it was kind of chill and comfortable being oblivious

― seriously, THIS GUY (daria-g), Friday, December 6, 2013 4:22 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is completely my experience, too. Was completely invisible from 15-30.

ever since i became an adult, and even now at almost 40, middle aged drunk guys still ask for my phone number at the corner liquor store

I dont even get catcalled. I'm not saying that should ever be a good thing but gah, whats wrong with me!?

I dont get catcalled either, because I never go outside.

If being invisible actually meant being treated like a person, chill friend/colleague interactions etc, I wd be OK with that, but in my experience it means not even being a person.

(I have often been invisible, rarely-to-never flirted with but sometimes totally blanked by dudes who were e.g. talking to me and my hott friend all evening the day before and then pretend - or maybe don't even have to pretend - they have no idea who I am when she's not there, and sometimes been the bad kind of visible: looks-based insults in the street, etc. So I'd be quite happy to reach the point where guys could ignore my looks for long enough to have a platonic conversation about my often guy-centric interests.

Or maybe the problem is just that if anyone actually wanted a conversation I'm out of practice and have forgotten how to talk to people at all. Or that I might think it meant something and then be all "but I thought he liiiked meeee" when nerdy conversations with ugly women their own age come second to bringing home hot girls half their age after all. Where's my ice floe?)

What does the long game look like for women and attractiveness and aging, because we're all pretty reasonable ppl and not youth-obsessed or w/e, and we all already know the parts about caring less, not depending on male validation, having a satisfying independent life, and so on, but none of those address the sadness of being alone when you don't want to be and looking ahead and not seeing any reasonable expectation that that will change. Or feeling like half a person bc you never see your representation being considered desirable.

And having just written that, I see that the same is true for non-white people non-able bodied people, definitely for fat ppl although I know some of us are or identify as "fat" already, so that's part of our struggle too...just true for so many people.

Is there any answer other than self-care and self-knowledge? It's necessary, isn't it, just to keep up with the damage the microaggressions do on a day-to-day basis.

If you figure that out, let me know willya? I agree with it all - I know logically I'm good and awesome and should just get on with it and I have a fun life but man, I'm lonely sometimes.

At 20 I thought the ~gender gap~ was getting better and we were on the way to a universe where people could treat each other like people and there was no need for our generation to get married because we were modern and easy-going, and now I feel like, oh, if I wanted a guy my own age I had to trick them into marrying me a decade ago and hope they were scared of divorce. Choice of being alone and not even trying forever vs putting myself on OKCupid for an occasional smattering of negs from dudes 20 years older than me.

Sorry, this isn't really the thread for venting, and I know I'm not putting very much effort into making things less difficult for myself, but.

sorry, I'm not up on everyone's personal details, but it sounds like you had a recent breakup of a long term relationship? Is that true?

Yes depending on your values of "recent", it was in May/June but on the other hand he is still living here which may be denting the getting-over-it process a little

(i.e. a hell of lot, OK, I know this, but I... don't do living on my own very well and don't want to rush into the "moving on" thing when I'm fairly sure there isn't anything to "move on" to)

PS it is totally within my personal definition of "recent", I'm just aware it's not within some other people's

Her sparse style makes me picture my grandmother reviewing local restaurants in my hometown - which I should clarify is definitely a mental image that makes me smile

oh that still counts as recent in my book, especially if you were together for a long time.

and you do have something to move on to -- a life where you are in control, as opposed to having to compromise/negotiate with this guy, who has made you unhappy

tbh it's not really him that made me unhappy so much as the realisation that wherever I go, there I am. he was a distraction from me making myself unhappy, and then he wasn't, and I'm scared of rushing into having nothing but the thoughts in my head.

but, I am cranky of late due to health worries (nothing serious, just annoying and slightly mysterious) and work stress and Christmas, and trying to fit appointments about the first around the other two, and anticipating all the relationship/breakup-related Christmas family visit smalltalk

health issues/work stress/fitting health appts around said work stress. Yes yes yes. I totally empathise with this, having just been thru it (see above). As it happens I still havent made the gyno specialist appointment :( havent had time...

and I'm scared of rushing into having nothing but the thoughts in my head.

I know that feeling! And the knowledge that your thoughts and your head are things you are stuck with for the rest of your life. Other people (esp. boyfriends/lovers/spouses) come and go, but you are pretty much stuck with yourself.

and I realized that I had two options if I didn't want an interminably miserable life:

1. I am actually a good person and will work on making myself like me and making me someone I would like
2. suicide

Trayce I'm not sure if I posted during your health issues but they sounded v. stressful indeed! hope things are going better, also go and see the gyno (and I should do something similar myself)

thanks sarahell, I guess 1 is a good way to look at it instead of my brain shutting down at "I need to be someone else completely right now, but I can't, so ???" rather than concentrating on the "working on" part.

Although I am really resistant to the "working on" thing, it turns out. There are things I know I would like myself more if I could do, and keep doing, but I can't ever seem to make myself do them. The charitable reading is that it's just comforting being the same old mess I've always been rather than heading into the unknown. There are less charitable ones, of course...

i definitely went through a long phase of fearing that "the loneliness of not having a man will permeate every moment of my being" -- and as the years of being single have gone by (I am at year 4 now), that loneliness has occupied less and less of my time. it has gotten occasionally annoying when a well-meaning friend will ask me if I'm seeing anyone or interested in anyone, and my response is, "Actually, no. And I'm pretty content. Almost happy, even!"

it was in May/June but on the other hand he is still living here which may be denting the getting-over-it process a little

Oh sweetie! This may be super nerdy and corny, but maybe in orbit would appreciate this, but this situation reminds me of poor widow Hornwood in Game of Thrones, who ended up married to this sociopath, who married her for her title and lands, and then locked her in a tower and starved her, so she ended up eating her fingers before she eventually died. In other words, this sounds like a really unhealthy situation, and while you presumably have food and freedom of movement, it is starving you of self-esteem and the power to move on.

I've been single forever, so I am used to it. But I am very rarely lonely. I have loose plans to Grey Gardens it up with my sisters in 20 yrs.

Having a 'partner' does not necessarily combat loneliness.