Age – PurplePretoria

My adventure with American consumerist culture and unattainable perfection coincides with my journey out of my twenties, the need to control, the allure of perfection, – skin, shape, perfect endings – to conversations, to relationships, to life; and the second semi-apocalyptic wave of covid 19 in the country [and earlier, the world] these past two months.

Like most other teenagers, I battled with self image and self expression. When I learned to talk I said too much and when I tried to keep quiet, I sometimes expressed myself with strange things like the short lived relief of breaking glass [before you have to search for every last piece]. When I discovered the impact of food and exercise, I became adept at cutting out bad food and felt a little more ‘healthier than thou’ when someone in the supermarket aisle picked the junk food I had managed not to pick after my own dizzying battle with myself of Should I or should I not? The more chaotic I felt at different periods of my life, the less I ate and the more I controlled what I did not eat.

Goop came to me at a time when I was new to juggling career and motherhood. Their podcast made me feel a little bit more sane because it talked about intricate details of things I wondered about. There was an episode on hormones, thyroid function and imbalance after pregnancy. I listened to it like I had just received a revelation about my life. I would get home and remain in the parking lot listening to one more last word. I looked forward to the daily grind of shoving errant third lane drivers into pavements and in the way of rushing trailers during the morning’s traffic jam because of these podcasts. Finally I noticed that at the start and in the middle of the podcasts, they were selling something tangible- something perfect. Months before when I had read a review of Marie Kondo’s work, I had left feeling annoyed and disturbed at the writer’s cynicism. It was a video about folding clothes and the comment was, “Well, she must be selling some thing. She’s probably selling boxes.” What I did not know was that the commenter had more experience than I did with consumerist culture. They were American after all.

The first thing I got myself was a Schmidt’s deodorant last Christmas. I had dreamed of what it would feel like to stop worrying about what my natural brand deodorant was up to by lunch time. Due to my health concerns with conventional deodorant, I longed to finally be a part of Jean Godfrey June’s cohort of Schmidt’s wearers- her teenage son and her musician boyfriend who played in a band- all potential victims of excessive sweat. I was promptly disappointed. Even the cheapest commercial brands did not leave white streaks anymore. The stick melted and the odor of green tea in my arm pits not only made me question the choice of smelling like green tea but it also merged with me to create a much deeper funky scent accented by a hint of green tea. I convinced myself that Schmidt’s was not made for the African sun and our Ugandan humidity.

Stepping into the huge shoes of any new age is daunting, but especially if its a big rounded number like 30. Apart from viewing myself from the lens of what my 8 year old self would think of me- that is, a grown woman- I have the ultimate questions of a to-be 30 year old, Am I making it? One of the areas where I have constantly questioned myself is the goals I set myself and my impact in the work place. Coupled with this, is the constant need to prove that I am self reliant, that I am something to be proud of, that I turned out well, or in more colloquial terms, that I did not waste school fees. Amidst this, you start to notice the balding, the greying, the hunching, the glazing over of eyes once strong, of the axis upon which our life, support, self worth and validation once revolved. Anyway…Where are we going after this place is over?

So, in line with the above, I decided to buy a belated birthday present for one half of my life forming duo. I bought something that I could buy, but not something I could afford comfortably; like, if the government bought cars for the Olympic medalists whom on their normal salary could not afford to fuel for their cars. Through the sample kit I received with the package, I, in a shorter time frame than I had originally planned, experienced my long awaited first taste of one of the best advertised lotions on the website.

There was tingling and slight burning immediately but I looked a bit different [maybe the allusion of fancy?] the next day so I continued with it. If it had been that pink lotion that my aunt had brought my mother and me from a certain mama lususu some years back, I would have questioned it sooner. No, this was a high end product by well researched wellness focused wealthy people who in the words of Gwyneth’s mother about good marital matches, ‘do not take fixer-uppers.’ By day three, I had broken out in a rash and my skin was red from what I eventually learned was the 20% Ascorbic Acid in the cream. Still, I did not throw it out immediately. It has taken me days to accept that I bought into the world of aggressive marketing and organic 100% pure naturally derived wellness consumerism.

When I finally accepted that I had been confused by money and unattainable perfection, I found an article that explained everything to me, including a statement which should not have shocked me but did – A new moisturizer can’t stop you from getting older. Embedded in my new found interest for clean beauty was the fear that my pre-30 year old face might be my best face and that I will soon join that dark oblivion where mammy caricatures endure- no svelte, no edge – just sexlessness. Most fellow millennials still can’t believe that we are not the babies anymore, we are actually the ones having babies,; and yet for women our life armor still includes beauty. I have not yet been convinced by microblading, false lashes, wigs and makeup, probably because my dream list is more acupuncture, supplements, anti-oxidants, more sleep and face yoga. I think it has to do with the disappointing feeling that comes when you rub off the concealer, the primer, thefoundation, tinted moisturiser, blush, mascara and red lipstick. An un-contoured face becomes like an unfinished painting.

The beginning of the thirties comes with, the more important things, like the rush to collect and compare even more financial and career accolades as success indicators. Moisturiser should only be a small part, but clearly, it isn’t.

Nobody understands disdain like a woman whose man has found himself a new woman. Nobody understands self scrutiny and criticism quite the way a teenage girl does. Though for the teenage girl, this initial fear that she might not be ‘enough’ usually subsides. But then adulthood presents yet another card, the physical changes of growing older and of being pregnant [for some].

I once asked my mother what it felt like to be old. I definitely hope that I phrased it better than that.

“I feel like I’m still the same inside. It’s the outside that has changed,” she replied.

It is one of the paradoxes of life, I suppose. That your inner spirit would remain the same, influenced only by your experience of life while your outer body ages. Some have attempted to reflect the youthfulness they feel inside with silicon boobs and fillers but it has not been a total success. It is interesting that, the age at which most women will eventually wish they could freeze in time is the same face and body, that they did not at that point in time find beautiful. The severely fragmented body part fetish culture that is the norm today definitely makes it more difficult. It seems to condense women into only a pair of twerking bums or a private part.

It has its advantages. It compliments the age old running theme of the world – the power struggle between men and women, whereby the objectification and lessening of one part of the human population has scored us women very poorly on the value card.

A woman’s value has been tied to her beauty for a very long time. That is why, whenever we look into the mirror, more than looking for whether we are still beautiful, we look for whether we are still valuable.

And because women’s beauty has been tied to age (‘Sweet Sixteen’), we think our value has an expiry date. Many women joke that they have declared themselves the same age for many years. And those are the honest ones! That is why the dreaded, “How old do you think i am?” always actually means, do you think I’m STILL beautiful? Do you think I’m lovable?

Back to pregnancy

Pregnancy for me came with both the anxiety of spontaneous body changes, a sense of duality and a loss of connection to my body. A duality perceived and cultivated by righteous perfectionism that I struggled with during another season.

I got the round popping baby bump I wanted but later on in my trimesters I began to worry that it was a little too big. Having a short torso and a big baby not only meant that I got too tired to walk or stand for long periods of time without reeling back and forth but it also meant that my baby pushed out on my intra- abdominal muscles and affected my back alignment. And in these aspects, part of my fears of losing myself had manifested.

One evening at committee meeting for a wedding ceremony, seven months pregnant- tired, round and roughed up by acne, a friend of my mother’s came up to me and exclaimed, “You look beautiful!” My response was a muddled and confused, “Really?” and “Thank you” and then I rushed to the bathrooms filled with emotion and brimming tears. I could tell that she really meant it.

After birth

I would say, the first look after birth should be extended to at least a week. It is not just the swollen touched out body, it’s just that the demanding wails and absolute rights to the milk tanks is enough to burn you out.

But when you do take that first look, you must treat myself with dignity even though you might not like what you see. Your body will probably always remember that it carried a baby. Your heart does too. Treating yourself with dignity means speaking well to yourself and taking steps to get your physique where you want it to be. I have found, that yoga and dancing do that for me. Though I have not been free to do yoga due to the high risk of increasing my diastasis recti. This I did not anticipate.

In the meantime, I have discovered that it is important to appreciate our bodies WHOLLY but that it is also important to go deeper. We will most probably also find that we are good friends, business women, caretakers, professionals, good cooks, writers, dancers, singers, tailors and we offer much more than just tourist incentives.

Tag: Age

A new moisturiser can’t stop you from getting older

Beauty unseen