After a midlife divorce, women often become super critical about how they look.  We join a health club, or even get plastic surgery because sometimes we think if we just looked younger our wasband wouldn’t have been attracted to that 32 year-old.  (Fact:  If he is that kind of man, it doesn’t matter how gorgeous you are.  Remember, it’s about his lack of integrity, not how you look.) I was one of those women who joined a health club while in the process of divorce … but I did so as much to even out my emotions, as much as to have “buns of steel.”  But I did love the new sleeker body I got in the process of those challenging workouts, not to mention sort of keeping ahead of cellulite.  But how many of us have seen 60/50 or even 40 year-olds who try to be victorious in that that unwinnable war against natural, graceful aging? After extreme cosmetic surgery, some look like caricatures of real women. I’m all for doing whatever we can to look our best at every age … in fact more than 25years ago, I tried to get rid of my own frown lines.   But if we take it too far sometimes it can get embarrassing.   As I was going through my Dad’s bookshelves a few years back, I found a book entitled The Paranoid’s Pocket Guide:  Hundreds of Things You Never Knew You Had to Worry About.   The Following is an excerpt from that book:  “Think about these things if you are tempted to check in with a cosmetic surgeon:

CHEMICAL PEELS AND NASAL SAWS

(Excerpted from the program of a recent World Congress on Cosmetic Surgical Rejuvenation of the face, body and extremities, held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.)

10:30 a.m. – “Use of Cheek/Neck Flap in Facial Plastic Surgery

11:45 a.m. – “Removal of Eyeliner Pigmentation with an Argon Laser”

1:30 p.m. – “An Alternative Method for the Nasal Osteotomy Utilizing the Dual Plane Reciprocating Nasal Saw Blade”

2:15 p.m. – Workshop – “How to Prevent a Lawsuit”

6:00 p.m. – Cocktail Party, Grand Ballroom  (I wonder if this was for the plastic surgeons or the plastic people?)

Let’s revel and rejoice in the full, fun, fine-wine women we are, and let our wasbands worry about people thinking he is his girlfriend’s dad.

Have a wonderful day appreciating the amazing woman you are!  I’m going to practice what I preach … frown lines and all!  My next step is to accept this gray that keeps forcing its way into my hair!

“So my dear friends, listen carefully, those who embrace these my ways are most blessed. Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life.”  Proverbs 8:32-33 (The Message)

P.S.  ( I was going to put a picture of plastic surgery gone bad … but they were just too depressing!)  And  Thank God for capable plastic surgeons who work magic on those people who really need it … people in accidents or war or fire.  They are miracle workers in how they can help repair a person’s face and their life.  And I’m not saying having cosmetic surgery is bad … but what’s more important is who we are inside.  Today, let’s appreciate our precious life just as it is … wrinkles, laugh lines, sags and all!