A friend of mine just posted a beautiful photo on Facebook.
In it, she's wearing no makeup and not even smiling. She's looking away from the camera, her glasses perched on her nose and the wind mussing her hair. In the post, she admits she nearly didn't put the picture up, exposing as it did her less than perfect side. In her words: "I'm scared you might just see it, the thing I'm not yet quite ready to name myself."
She's talking about ageing. And her a whole six years younger than me!
But she wants to buck the system and make her social media presence a place of integrity, where the little signs of ageing are celebrated, not veiled. Where the messy bits are held up for inspection as much as the pretty parts. Where we don't all pretend we look exactly the same as we did 10 (20, 30...) years ago.
Even if that's how we still look in our own heads. (As if our mind's eye has more authority than our mirror.)
I want to call her brave, but I wish I didn't have to.
What kind of world do we live in where you need both courage and conviction to show your own face?
I know it isn't only women who grieve their youthful selves, but the opportunities for disguise are considerably more available to us - make up, hair dye, eyelash extensions, laser age spot removal, botox, lip fillers...and that's just what you can get at the local shopping centre. Because everybody and their neighbour are doing it.
Which means eschewing this sort of thing, even some of the time, takes some guts.
The truth is, women are complicit in this situation, so we have at least some power to fix it.
We can change the world, just a little bit, by merely going outside with no makeup on. Or putting up the occasional unflattering shot on social media.
My friend's post is a reminder that Facebook doesn't have to be Fakebook, and, more importantly, that just by being ourselves we can embolden others to embrace the real beauty of the imperfect, the messy and the ordinary.
