We all wish we could return to the days when we were in our prime. When men did not look straight through us in restaurants, their reptilian brains discounting us as unworthy of note. When we were not just mothers and wives — invisible to all but our loved ones....Now, consider how young women are making decisions that will have a significant impact on their ability to marry and have children with the same sort of self-insight.
This is why women — especially those of my age — are so desperate to do everything to halt the rot. And why they — we — are so vulnerable to the siren call of the plastic surgeon’s knife.
When I was in my early 30s and liked what I saw in the mirror, I vowed that I would never mess with Mother Nature. I would grow old with dignity and grace.
I reneged on that promise several years ago. Not to any great extent — just a bit of help with those pesky frown lines.
But though I haven’t quite booked my first facelift, I’m not discounting the possibility either.
Because, you see, growing old is a bit like giving birth. People tell you how awful it is and you can look at pictures and read about it in books. But you never really appreciate quite how hard it is until it actually happens to you.
At which time you’d do almost anything to make it stop.
What are the chances that the average woman of 34 is going to feel the same way about her perspective at 18 that the 48-year old Sarah Vine does about her 32-year old self?