Beauty fades! I just turned 29, so I probably don’t have that many good years left in me.

Gwyneth Paltrow, NY Rock Interview November 2001

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she stops receiving looks. For some, it’s sooner. For the lucky ones it comes later in life. But it always happens. And all of us dread its coming. We don’t want to admit it, but we love those looks. When we wake up and feel like we can conquer the universe, we expect those looks. If we want nothing more than to bury ourselves under our duvets instead of facing the day, those looks give us life; we feed off of them. Yet all the while we scoff and complain that we want to be seen as so much more than infinitesimally long legs or hips made for sin. We want to be looked in the eye, not the cleavage.

                But then they stop. Slowly at first, so we don’t notice the change. One day – maybe after a month or two, maybe after a few years – we realize that the heads don’t turn anymore. The smiles are less appreciative and more polite. Then, the death blow; we get called ma’am. So we buy creams and serums that promise us smooth, glowing, youthful skin. We wear undergarments that constrict our bodies so tight that our internal organs stop functioning properly. We perform workout routines that would rival medieval Gladiator training. What do we get for our efforts? After the nipping, snipping, buffing, tucking, tanning, stretching, peeling, smoothing, and dying we become Barbie – twenty years past her prime.

                Looking at myself in the mirror under the blue-green florescent lights in the women’s bathroom of the county courthouse, I knew my time had come.