Today is my 44th Birthday and the best present I've received is the notification of my first appointment to start the treatment that will lead to a younger looking me, yes dear reader, this isn't clickbait, I am genuinely having a facelift.
A couple of weeks ago I went for a consultation at the Queensway skin clinic which is part of Queensway dental, I met with facial aesthetics specialist Doctor Uzma Olbrich and we talked about ageing, my face and what she could do to help. As part of our joint collaboration I'm going to be writing about the process and will be sharing some before and after photos too, I'm going to tell you all of the good parts, I'll chronicle the tricky bits, the bits which might hurt and I'll be as honest about this subject as I have been about the rest of my life. Uzma told me that often patients don't talk about this subject, sometimes not even their partner is aware of what they've had done because although it is a facelift, it's non surgical and when I say non surgical, I won't be going under the knife, I'll be awake throughout and over a period of weeks and months I'll have needles filled with hyaluronic acid injected into the problem areas of my face. When the transformation is complete I should look younger, rested and like I've just had the very best holiday albeit without any tan.
The thing is you see, I'm 44 on the outside, with makeup on, on a good day, my friends tell me I can pass for mid thirties, when I see me on a morning though, with puffy skin, well let's just say that ageing is a cruel and heartless process. On the inside I feel 35 and that's how I want to feel I look on the outside. Wait too long and when you have the fillers you have to have so much that it doesn't look like you anymore, at my age it can be so sensitively done that all you'll see is the very best version of me.
As a feminist I believe we should have the choice to look how we want to look, if we choose not to shave our legs or arms and we want to go grey, it's our choice but conversely if we want to look like the best version of ourselves for as long as we want to, if we want to age so gracefully that we can look 60 when we're actually 80+ then that's our choice too. For me it was an easy decision, I didn't have anyone else to consider and I'm not doing it for anyone else but me, I've lived with only my dog sleeping on the other side of the bed for the last 4 years and let me tell you, I doubt she's going to congratulate me for looking so youthful.
As women of the new millennium we have so much power than we did before, we are confident, forthright and not governed by old standards, if we look back at our parents, grandparents and how we watched them age, it's a great thing to be able to say "That's not going to happen to me, that's not how I want to do it" I've lived my whole life not conforming and I guess that's why it was easy for me to make the decision.
I'm the least vain person but I've always lived by the rule that if you are unhappy with something take action, don't just sit and whinge about it because that doesn't change anything. That's why my sugar-free February plan starts tomorrow (starting it on my Birthday was never going to happen) I'm taking action now to change the whole of me on the inside and out because I want to live a long and happy life and because I want the body I'm in to represent the person I am inside. I am after all a confident, positive, strong and independent woman.
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