On Beauty, Aging, and Raising Girls

And a little nod to The Barbie Movie. Of course.

I love Nora Ephron. Many of us do. She was one of the first people to tell women’s stories in ways we actually recognized on screen, with a heavy dose of humor sprinkled in. You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle—it’s hard for me to get through fall without watching at least one of these movies.

In addition to writing screenplays, Nora was a journalist and a brilliant essayist. One of her essay collections is called I Feel Bad About My Neck.

The title of the essay is supposed to be funny, and it is. But I remember reading it as a younger woman and, in panic, thinking to myself for the first time, Wait . . . am I supposed to feel bad about my neck? Are neck wrinkles *another* thing I have to take care of?

Spoiler. Yea, they are. 😆 Or they aren’t. Depends on the day and / or how you approach aging and define beauty. Lately I’ve been writing a lot about the passage of time and how I’ve noticed changes in my body. I think that’s because I have found myself in a new season, and I’m still discovering the textures and nuances of being in what writer Anne Helen Peterson calls “the portal.” I’m in the transition from younger woman, younger mother, and younger business owner into some sort of a middle woman. And this transition to the middle brings a lot of change. My body is changing. My face is changing. Like Nora warned, my neck is changing. (WHUT. SHE WAS RIGHT. WHAT’S WITH THE NECK. I digress.)

But my brain is too. And I like it.