Still young after all!

7.45 am!
Ui, they gave me a whip and of course I proved that I was born a soprano.
All around me, wide smiles...
What will happen?
He was born!!
I was born!!
Alvíssaras is a girl, perfect, cheeky.
I looked around and recognized the place.
After all, I'm not in the hospital. I was born in the house where I spent the 9 months of pregnancy, I already know this room.
Well, that way everything will be easier, I'm already adapted, almost mastering the piece.
Cry!
Now I'm testing them to see if they're aware of my signals because they all look silly looking at me and saying:
- Oh, I can't believe such a cute little girl! - Then, I thought... here come these with "talk to sleep ox".
Okay, but it worked.

They paid attention to me and everyone gathered around me. The mother bundled me up with her and presented the meal to me, but very modestly, a diaper serving as a tent so that no one would covet it.
And I grabbed my lunch there.

Delicious mother and father and so I settled in this family, where I grew up.
And the years went by.
A vain mother, but very discreet with a vain daughter full of desire to have everything.
I flipped through the costumes from the 60s with those drawings of upturned girls in clothes to die for. And I saw myself in them and wanted almost everything.
I met with the mother and aunt and we reached a consensus.
And there was the doll and I, all conceited in the same little dresses. And there was a bunch of made-to-measure clothes and I already sent “bitaites”. Around here, it was already obvious that she was attentive to fashion.

Later, fate did my bidding and let me give free rein to my imagination and, with the help of my mother, I gradually revealed my talents. Accompanying this there was also beauty care.

My mother told me that they were essential to keep skin clean and hydrated.
I still had baby skin. Accustomed to accompanying my mother to the pharmacy, I was dazzled by so many beautiful bottles and boxes of scented beauty products. But the mother, then, would not let me stretch. I could only use Vichy products or whatever else I wanted to moisturize my skin. But that's it! But I wanted more. I wanted to be like my high school friends who already painted themselves.
But I was not lucky. I made my mother cry a little, but nothing. After all my attempts to convince her to let me wear make-up were exhausted, I went to appeal to my father, who understood my “pain” but did not go against my mother's order.
Anything to hydrate and treat the skin could be bought without restrictions. Makeup only at 18 years old. And “nothing else”!

Well, that's how I often saw myself simulating paintings with the ballpoint pen and quickly removing them with spit. Other times she used crayons or reddish chalk to make her cheeks rosy. But I had 5 seconds to look at myself in the mirror before the door opened and I was caught.
And that's how I grew up. At times I was furious and sad because I couldn't see my creativity stamped on my face, but mothers have an irrefutable status (without thinking that creativity could come from mother's hand and burst on my face….and it wasn't well this “pink of saudinha that I wanted)
Today I value all the excesses that I was not allowed and the moderation that I was allowed.
More than 40 years have passed and I still have great skin.
I don't want to say that it was just because of the mother's “despotic” methods, because genetics rule more than mothers.
But I learned to create habits and beauty care that remain to this day.
As for the body…..well, I've been aging a little faster.
The hourglass body, after 50, still well defined has become a pear and I don't know if I'll stay here or become a "Berlin ball"

But let's get down to business! the aging process
Aging is not losing youth.
These are steps that we climb slowly and each one has a different body and mentality. This is called growth!

But these steps are all absolutely necessary for the formation of one's personality. It is these steps that reinforce the only two truths we have as a human being: that we were born and that one day we will die. But in all these walks we have different but very useful experiences to help in the unpredictable future. They are the ones who give us the experience we need to know how to deal with likes and dislikes in an intelligent way. This trajectory of ours is also accompanied by the behavior of our friends and family integrated in the world in which we live.

The mix of cultures, education, character and personality is what makes us know how to conduct this whole orchestra and approach aging not as a sad and disastrous subject but as another stage of life to be taken like the others with great courage and perseverance.
Knowing how to grow old inevitably depends on an excellent well-formed head, free from the influences of fashions and myths. It is a very controversial subject and much plagued by the pressures of the world in which we live, where the elderly, instead of being praised and respected for their wisdom and journey are “backed up” and sometimes even reduced just because they are old.
And if genetics and science consider that the now 60 years old are the old 40 years old, it should lighten the burden that falls on the elderly a little. It's fashionable to be young! As if we could nullify biological age.
No, we cannot. Yes, we can change stigmas by embracing each phase of life with the same determination as we embraced the previous ones.

Growing old is a premise from which we cannot escape except through Death.
But one thing we can do. It's trying as much as possible to maintain an excellent appearance where we don't completely deceive the Civil Government but, at least we can, with some artifices, disguise our age.

There are no people who don't like to look in the mirror and find themselves “dry”.
We must neutralize the prejudices associated with advancing age and increasingly share the benefits that this brings us.
When Isabella Rossellini was asked to stop being the “historical face of Maison Lancôme”, telling her that her face would no longer make any woman dream, the brand looked for new faces. Until in 2016, at the age of 64, she was invited again, now giving more and more hope to more mature women.
A new posture was born before the concept of aging.
It was the beginning of the break with the beauty standards established until then and the less and less disruptive inclusion of new models of beauty. It was a decisive moment in the selection and wider inclusion of models that represent the multiplicity of women whether by age, size or other physical characteristics.

The “obsession” for youth, as the word implies, can even become a disease and is the result of a culture installed over decades. But it is also education that gives us the ability to know how to distinguish things and know how to choose the path.

Aging is not a matter of choice. The choice lies in how we determine that we want to grow old. Keeping a young spirit, day-to-day, busy with routines and projects are fundamental to live up to the phrase “a healthy body in a healthy mind”.

Getting old is inevitable (for those who make it there) but getting boring is optional. Therefore, we must appreciate life more, every second that passes is history and it is our obligation to always know how to live better.
Knowing how to appreciate the changing body and making the most of age, together with the wisdom and confidence that have brought us this far, is one of the best weapons for us to better enjoy our future.
Sarah Jessica Parker is one of the women who can show us how accepting the aging process is not difficult. It can even be heroic.

Yes, because as women we have to continue to exalt the “cult of beauty”, while men are allowed to have gray hair, a little tummy, wrinkles… and all this accompanied by sighs from fans praising their charm.
Social networks are our greatest enemies.
They crucify us for wrinkles too many or too few. They bother us anyway. They use the magnifying glass meticulously and with the purest coldness they do not admit imperfections to us.

Let us choose if we want to age naturally or if we want to alleviate some “defect”, whether with surgery or not, as long as it makes us feel good.
Fashion, in general, is responsible for this entire culture of beauty. Like everything, it has its good side and its bad side.

The cult of beauty goes back to the Greeks who saw physical beauty as a reflection of the body's health and believed that aesthetics and physique were as important as intellect in the quest for perfection. Today, lean and athletic bodies are synonymous with perfection. People are obsessed with the prevailing beauty standard, thus seeking acceptance, satisfaction, self-esteem and consequent happiness.

All this excessive appreciation of the body and beauty had repercussions on the growing demand for aesthetic centres, plastic surgeries, increasingly sophisticated and innovative beauty products with majestic promises and miraculous proposals. Announced by the media, it led to an exaggerated cult of the body, in the search for an aesthetic standard acceptable to the eyes of the world.
But there is no beauty without flaws and the consequence of this obsession revealed to us the dissatisfaction of most teenagers with their bodies, for not showing socially accepted standards.

As a result, they feel frustrated and sometimes look for drugs or practices that could put their health at risk in the hope of “reincarnating” in a slim and beautiful body. All this led to a growing number of diseases such as anorexia, bulimia and vigorexia (a disorder characterized by the compulsive practice of physical exercises). But I have no choice

I'm aware of my appearance and because of aesthetics I've already liked myself better. Even in my 40s and 50s I found myself looking especially young and in fact I felt confident and “powerful”. It was the best phase of my life. I fit the standards required by society, I felt good about my body and soul. But quickly life put me in place.
He gave me some glasses and showed me that despite so many beauty products (I never gave up moisturizers or water) I inevitably couldn't stop aging and my skin started to wrinkle (like a pleat) the expression becoming more tenuous, the white ones deserving more frequent retouches, the legs more like draped curtains, in short a slight sample of what it had been. That's Life!

So I had to accept maturity and recalculate my route with wisdom and dignity and I dedicated myself to making this new season a fun scene. “It's part of my show” as Cazuza says.
I noticed the inevitable in time: the lack of alternatives and interests, entertainment, social interaction is one of the great factors of sadness that leads to faster aging.
But since I'm only given two alternatives: grow old or die, as long as life allows me, I choose the first option. I want to mature by aging! And as Iris Apfel says (already 101 years old)
“I don't see anything so wrong with a wrinkle. I t's a kind a badge of courage” (I don't see any harm in wrinkles, they are like a badge of courage).

I always knew, but I kept forgetting, that inner beauty is something more profound than physical appearance. , aesthetics, and the world around me.
I'm getting old but with pleasure. I think this is the secret. Keeping my curiosity sharp, an infinite desire to learn, to keep myself busy, to keep my intrinsic sense of humour, …..and with all this knowledge I end up having fun and sleeping well with life.
And if they ask me how old I am, I answer with a smile (because smiling rejuvenates). I have the ones I have left, because the ones I lived I don't have anymore

Every age has its advantages and disadvantages and when we realize that we don't want to go back, it's because everything had a meaning that gave us value, that we're good with ourselves, good with our past, that we've marked the ground and left history.

What saddens me is that society is very intolerant of women and their aging. The beauty myth is a social demand.
He even makes judgments as if it were in our hands to stop aging. Of course, with the help of treatments, medications or surgeries, we can make aging more difficult, but despite all the innovations, we really have no choice but to let and accept the passing of the years.

Sometimes we hear people say that we are no longer worth anything, that we are already “dry”, and that is very cruel. Even because it should be the opposite. There should even be a feeling of pride and greater respect and consideration for being “more valuable” and experienced people and still ready for a new beginning now with enormous know-how. Age is a rank! It doesn't matter how old life is, but how much life we ​​live in those years.
It's not nice to be devalued and taken advantage of as if it were a shame and a deficiency that we've matured.

They should look at us as “jewels” and not belittle us.
We are ready to embrace new challenges, just as the younger ones embraced those of their age.
And there's more and make no mistake, no. Aging is part of the human condition, but some get there, others don't. Which makes me wonder why we mostly talk about it like it's something we have control over. But don't be under any illusions, we don't!
From one second to the next we stop aging and without warning… we literally leave everything. And there are no replicas left to tell the story. We are truly unique.

“As I was about to turn 60, I realized that I was approaching my third act, my final act, and that this was not a dress rehearsal,” Jane Fonda tells Glamor. "One of the things I knew for sure is that I didn't want to end up with too many regrets."

Andie MacdDowell told Vogue, ''I suffered a lot because in the film industry we are forced to look younger and the decision to keep our hair gray.'' It didn't go over well. “I feel precious as I am. I don't want to look younger.

Meryl Streep also feels wonderful at the age of 72, with some “who cares” wrinkles and a very well-groomed gray hair that is making a splash for the attitude and courage as well as for the strength that the actress transmits to mature women.

So this new era we live in, that of social networks, so intrinsically linked to aesthetics, this is that it doesn't forgive us anything.
Exposing the marks of time is aesthetically ugly or at least outdated and out of place,...shame on you!
Don't call me old please, because it's not good to classify me as a “period lady” who has much more “cachê”.

And it is young people, still at the stage where they think they are immortal, who make us feel the weight of age with a bitter indifference. They shoot, foolishly, remembering how this or that person is aging, without remembering that one day they will probably go through the same thing.
We are living in a world in which we are victims of “ageism” (means the way of discriminating a person by age), in which everything is analyzed in detail, ridiculing older people until they feel ashamed and disintegrated, wanting to restrict their freedom. freedom to accumulate birthdays.

The passing of time shouldn't be scary nor should women be seen as having an "expiration date".
This metamorphosis is inevitable, so why do young people penalize us so much? Maybe for lack of culture or the inevitable lack of sense. Because there is nothing more certain after being born, if the universe allows it, that we are getting older every day.

But in the midst of all this there is yet another curious phenomenon of injustice. The requirement with men is generous, they are not sacrificed like us.
They are flooded with compliments because their wrinkles are naturally for “expression” and they even give them big smiles saying that those marks of time fit them like a glove.

The fact is, that I live closely the drama of some friends who undergo plastic surgery because they cannot overcome social acidity. Many have high self-esteem and are grateful for what they see in the mirror, but it doesn't always work the same way for everyone and some lose their characteristics and expressiveness and become addicted to social media filters. And this sometimes ends in illness.

I have decreed that I will not hate my body.
Some time ago, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I grumbled at him. The image I had was no longer the same… well, what can I do? I'm trying to harmonize the figure with a little way here and there... and there I go.
But, suddenly, my body got angry with me and warned me that the extra kilos were my responsibility.
And the body is right. I tried to lose weight, without anger or torture, but it didn't work.
But I didn't cross my arms, but before any other initiative I had to apologize to the body for having burdened it with a fault that is not entirely its own. The bouncing hormones don't really help, but the puddings, chocolates and the like I could have avoided.
In fact, I have more to thank him because he is the one who allows me to travel the world, see the sunset, dance like there's no tomorrow, hug the one I love….and stay here with myself and with life.
Nor do I tell you that cellulite is wonderful, because it is not! And he could very well have rejected it at birth because genetics have a lot of strength, but, well, there are no perfect situations.
And since there are no arguments against facts, I defend myself by pretending to be blind, deaf and mute when I hear some criticism or less pleasant judgment (which doesn't mean I have cockroach blood)

Once my own vulnerabilities are recognized, I can only live in the way that makes the most sense to me at this moment:
Continue to love, cultivate good friendships; cultivate my lifestyle; wear comfortable and charming clothes; live the emotions of “my” songs and my books with intensity; continue to paint and create whenever I feel like it; enjoy that cool summer wind and be happy.

And I'll link you with a heteronym of Fernando Pessoa
“We love perfection because we can't have it;
We would dislike it if we had it;
The perfect is the inhuman
Because humans are imperfect
The book of restlessness

(Bernardo Soares)