I still remember the exact night I first learned about “crows feet.”
I was at a “gals dinner” 5 years ago, and it was the kind of group that I could intuitively sense I did not belong in. I was seated at the far end of the table, across from a woman who was lovely to speak to. Among the gaggle of these gals - she was the only one I felt a connection with.
Until, however, she began to tell me about crows feet.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She pointed to the sides of her eyes, and began to explain. “They are these little lines that form on the side of your eyes. Mine are faint right now, but they only get deeper over time. So I’m going to get preventative botox and smooth them out.”
Immediately, the wheels began to turn.
Did I have crows feet?
Is this something I should be concerned about?
Have people been staring in horror at the lines by my eyes and just not telling me?!
I believe this is exactly how it goes. No matter how much “body positivity” we throw around - nothing says more about the standards we hold our physical forms to, like the things we try to “fix.”
What breaks my heart is that so much of “what needs fixing” is learned. It is not innate. If no one had ever explicitly pointed out things like dark circles, hairy arms, bushy eyebrows, or crows feet (all things that I am the sometimes-proud owner of) - I wouldn’t even clock them. They were not on my radar until someone put them there. Pointed them out as something that separates me from The Ideal.
These “broken things” change with the times (remember when having no curves was the best, until being curvy was the new thing?). It’s true that our culture dictates the ways our bodies are broken - but no one enforces these rules like we do.
I want to add that it’s unreasonable to assume we will ever live in a world where none of this matters. We are human, and we want to look good, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get my eyebrows threaded and feel like brown Wonder Woman right after.
But something about this act of freezing feels different to me. Like taking an eraser to all evidence. Like forgetting each time we laughed so hard, our eyes squeezed shut, until they wrinkled. Like none of that is worthy of keeping around. Like the maps that we are made of don’t matter.
What I can’t stop thinking about is - how will anything ever change, how will any of us escape these evolving, newfound, “things to fix” - without an intentional shift to see ourselves a little differently?
I am no expert - but I am trying to see these “imperfections” not as “signs of aging” - but instead, as secret signals from old age. Maybe we are meant to have visual evidence so we don’t forget that we are dying. Maybe we need these reminders to stay fully awake to our own lives.
I ask my 80-year-old self her opinion on what I might do with these newfound wrinkles. I hear her laugh and say, “Those aren’t wrinkles. That’s proof of life.”
Forehead wrinkles Each time I raised my eyebrows in wonder.
Stretch marks Each time I pushed my body past perceived limits.
Dark circles Each time I lost sleep but lived to see another day.
I understand it’s easier said than done. Some days I catch myself in these oppressive patterns. But what’s important is that I catch them, before they try to take over altogether. That I get better at separating capitalistic noise from the whispers of bodily wisdom. That I know, deeper and deeper, the way these lines sink into my skin, that all of this is evidence that I lived.
I lived.
And maybe the world wants to tell me it’s unsightly.
So let them close their eyes, freeze their eyes, do with them what they may.
For now - I’ll plan to live wrinkly, and awake.