Rejecting negative reactions to your own reflection is an act of rebellion
I was staring at a terribly unflattering close-up of my face on my iPhone screen.
I was waiting for my parents to accept our FaceTime call so they could talk to their grandson.
I should have been excited to connect my parents to their grandson so he could show them the tooth he just lost.
I should have used those 10 seconds of wait time to express some gratitude for this technology that allows my sons to stay close to their grandparents, who live over 600 miles away.
And yet all I could focus on was this one-inch part of my jaw that I was sure was on its way to becoming a forbidden jowl of midlife.
I moved the phone to a different angle to see just how bad the damage really was. I pulled my skin up near my ear to see how saggy it had become around my jaw. I instantly started brainstorming solutions to this problem.
- Was this something Botox could solve?
- Would I need to invest in that barbaric treatment I saw in the Goop documentary where they inject tiny threads under your skin to pull it taut?
- Was I destined to become a jowled middle-aged lady before either of my sons turned 10?
I’m disappointed to say that all of this flashed through my mind in those 10 seconds we waited for my parents to accept our FaceTime call.
“I’m better than this,” I keep telling myself.
And yet every opportunity to stare myself down on a FaceTime call, in a restroom mirror, or in a Zoom meeting is just one more opportunity to pick out an aging-related flaw and start spiraling out of control about it.
I know this isn’t the way I want to live, but it’s tough to break this cycle of self-critique. Especially when you’ve heard your own mom pick apart her aging face since the time you were in elementary school.
I need a new pattern to break these bad habits of mine.
I wouldn’t normally follow the guidance of a celebrity on this topic. I don’t need advice on aging from anyone who spends tens of thousands of dollars a year on cosmetic treatments.
But Jennifer Garner might be one of a handful of celebrities with the right mindset on aging.
When Jennifer Garner turned 50 recently, she made a statement that stuck with me. Responding to a question about her ultimate beauty advice, she said that we all need to stop looking in the mirror so much.
“My beauty advice is always the same: Look in the mirror less, obsess less, and look at the rest of the world to see what you could be using your time for instead. We all look at our faces more than people used to, and it doesn’t do you any good.”
What a refreshing message about aging that I am so far failing miserably at.
It’s true — with mirrors everywhere and far more video calls and screens to reflect our image right back at us all day long, it can be exhaustingly difficult to take a break from this constant self-monitoring.
I can remember only one time in my life when I lived without so many images of myself to critique.
After I graduated from college, I lived in Senegal for a year. My first apartment there had a tiny mirror above the sink, but there was no full-length mirror in sight.
I had no access to US Weekly or any toxic images of celebrity bodies that had influenced my perspective for years, and my apartment didn’t have Wifi. We didn’t have smartphones back then, or FaceTime calls.
I still remember returning home and walking through JFK airport, the covers of magazines in Hudson News like foghorns announcing my arrival back to reality.
I had spent a year feeling fully present in my body, but rarely looking at it. It was the most alive I’ve felt in my life.
And then I returned to my life in the United States, and I’ve lived with constant mirrors and screens ever since.
My early fixation on my body has now been replaced by a fixation with signs of aging, and my frequent mirror and screen-gazing aren’t helping one bit.
Perhaps I should throw out my mirrors now, or shroud them in dark cloths.
In the Shiva tradition of Judaism, mourners cover mirrors after the death of a loved one. At least one reason for this tradition appears to be to discourage mourners from selfish gazing and to refocus their thoughts on the deceased.
In a way, that’s what Jennifer Garner was advocating for with her statement on aging. We could all use a lot less focus on ourselves and more focus on others and how we are contributing to the world.
That is exactly the way I want to age.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every time we felt drawn to staring at our own reflections, we reminded ourselves to reflect on something we’d done for someone else that day?
Wouldn’t it be rebellious if every time we started noticing those negative thoughts about aging creeping in while waiting on a FaceTime call, we chose to compliment something about ourselves that has nothing to do with outward appearance?
Humans have used some form of mirror since as early as 6,000 BC. Mirrors and screens aren’t going away anytime soon.
But I can still rebel against my own habits and fight these useless thoughts that occupy my mind every time I open a Zoom meeting.
I owe it to myself, to my kids, and to the legacy I want to leave here that doesn’t have a gosh darn thing to do with the tautness of my jawline.
