As we always do on weekends, my husband and I went out to do things together. Our weekends usually include just hanging out and holding hands, having lunches, grabbing and sharing chocolate in one of chocolateries around LA, shopping for both of us, movies, museums, you name it. Anyway, this particular weekend we decided to check out stores with summer sales going on. As you can imagine, there were tons of people shopping in a department store; mostly women. I glanced around and was stunned by how many women had work to their faces/bodies done. All of those women were of a certain age group.

It made me think about how society portrays women and about the messages that are being conveyed to young girls that cause insecurity and trigger a need to alter their bodies.

I’m almost forty. When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I was an extremely charming girl with a very petite, yet good body that would be considered a small-girl type body shape. Closer to 30, I became more feminine in my body shape. My hips became more rounded, my breasts became fuller (even though they were never big), my legs became more of a shape that I wanted them to be for years, my butt was fabulous, my skin was glowing and I had no idea what a pimple was.

Those were my “golden” years when I was very “juicy” and attractive. Only after I turned 35 did I start to notice that my skin started to change and that some wrinkles started to appear here and there. I had heard about injections and all kinds of beauty “help” for years as I had a friend who had tried every possible beauty method out there. However, it had never occurred to me to try these methods myself until I turned 36 or 37. I decided to try fillers under my eyes and regretted it big time and never tried it again.

Anyway, now I’m almost 40 with a child and years of experience and lots of wrinkles.

I don’t have a perfect body anymore. I don’t have my great looking butt, flat tummy, glowing skin and perfect hair… but I do have my rich life experience and I do have a child and tons of lessons and much more on top of that… and trust me, for a girl who was once a model it may be challenging … but, I don’t find it challenging… just the opposite. I wouldn’t want to have my “perfect” body and great butt instead of everything I have now. I’ll give up that butt all day long to have more moments with my child and with my husband.

Many women want to change their looks because they can’t accept themselves fully. By getting surgery on their faces, women are trying to erase all the experiences that they have had in their lives. All those lines on our faces are a form of our own individual identity in a way. And by erasing it, we basically erase our identity… and what do we do instead? We try to get a perfect forehead like Susan-the-next-door-neighbor or like that movie star… we want to have the same flat belly that Jane Fonda has and so on… what does that do to us??? Any idea? Where is any kind of an identity in all that? It got lost? No, it was erased by us…

By erasing all this, we also erase moments of happiness. We erase our childhood and comfort. We demolish our past and destroy our present by being completely empty in today’s life. What kind of a future are we creating under those conditions? Have you ever thought about it? Does it not all sound scary? Yes, it does! But we prefer not to think about it and of course not to talk about it. If someone raises the topic, we jump on their throat and cross them out of our lives for being rude or noisy or weird or whatever other labels we prefer…Instead, we should ask a lot of these questions to ourselves… and the first question should be:

“Where are we headed with all of the actions that we are taking today and what are we are going to get out of it in the future?”

Well, I do want my future to be bright and happy and I do want to remember my past. I do want to look at myself when I’m 80 and see my sleepless 20s when I was young and carefree. I also want to see sleepless nights when I woke up to feed my child. I want to see grey hair that represents my experience in America. I do want to remember where I came from and where I am heading. What are my goals and desires? They are mine! Not somebody else’s, not society’s rules and alterations, mine.

I want to chuckle with my husband and reminisce “remember when I was young and had a great butt”. I want to remember my pregnancies and everything that relates to them but if I try to change my face and body – it wouldn’t be me… it would be another person… ANOTHER…but only physically, not mentally or experientially-based. And here we enter a real problem of disconnect (but this is a different huge topic that requires another discussion).

Accepting ourselves the way we are is the only way to heal ourselves.

All of us have tons of wounds we need to heal. But running away from them and hiding is not going to help solve the issues and make us feel at ease. No, it’s just the opposite. It confuses our minds more and we sink deeper and deeper into the darkness of our own demons.I look at myself in the mirror and see how imperfect I am. I see all my good and bad experiences. I see all the struggles that I have endured throughout life and all of the challenges that I have encountered and am still facing in order to learn how to grow spiritually. I have a constant reminder about my own family that wasn’t perfect yet they are my only parents and I adore and love them dearly.  I see myself struggling through an acceptance of myself and a new life in the States… and so many other experiences that I’ve had in my life.

I don’t want to go back to my 20s and 30s and I don’t want to have perfect skin, body, etc… I don’t.

I want to be able to stand out from the crowd and be noticeable because of my wrinkles, my not-ideal tummy, my grey hair that proclaims my life experience and my soul… My pain taught me how to love,  my pain taught me how to live, taught me to aaccept and I don’t want any other life or experience because all of that makes me ME – today me…. what can be more precious?