The Secret to Anti-Aging: Only One Thing Works

 

Aren’t we all looking for the Fountain of Youth? Who wouldn’t want to stay young forever or for at least as long as possible? Certainly, the cosmetics and cosmetic surgery industries have made a fortune off this desire.

I’m going to tell you the secret, the one and only way to stop aging.

But first, an old joke:

God tells a woman that she will live a very long life. She thinks, well, if I’m going to live a long time, I want to look good. So, she contacts a plastic surgeon and has a total facelift.

A few months later, as she’s walking down the street, she’s hit by a car and killed.

“God,” she says with outrage when she gets to heaven, “you told me I was going to live a long life!”

“I’m sorry,” says God, “I didn’t recognize you.”

When I was 21, I moved into an apartment. Downstairs lived an old woman, her face more wrinkled and lined than a Chinese Shar Pei.

Shar-Pei

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I am not implying my neighbor looked like a dog because she certainly did not. The picture is just in case you’ve never seen a Shar Pei.

Back to my neighbor. I had the opportunity to spend time with her, and after a while, as I got to know her, her kindness and loving heart replaced her lines and age, and I only saw beauty.

Around the same time, when I was looking in the mirror one afternoon, I noticed a small line on my forehead. I freaked out. My mom was visiting, and I rushed out of the bathroom. Pointing at my head, I shrieked, “I saw a line on my forehead. What am I going to look like by the time I’m 25!”

My mother began laughing. She laughed harder when she looked but couldn’t see anything despite my frantic efforts to show her the dreaded line. I went back to the bathroom, and as I peered into the mirror, I decided I would not get attached to the mirror, because one day it would show me something I didn’t want to see.

I remember my childhood girlfriend, Margaret, declaring when we were 29 that she wasn’t afraid of dying but she was afraid of looking old. By then, she’d already had three nose jobs. Always a pretty girl, she didn’t need the work. Long story short, Margaret got her wish. Despite a successful career as an entertainment attorney and a marriage to an FBI agent who adored her, Margaret got involved in drugs. One morning, she convinced her husband she was fine and focused on helping stray animals. After he left for work, she took drugs she’d gotten off the internet. She either tripped or passed out and fell over the top of a chair, wedging her head against the wall and cutting off her oxygen. By the time her husband found her and an ambulance rushed her to the hospital, she was brain dead. She never made it to her 60s. Margaret got her wish, she never reached an age where she looked old.

I have another friend who had a total face lift when she was 50. She looked good for a while, but her genetics was strong, and over time, her face sagged and the lines reappeared. When she looks in the mirror, she sees old. When I look at her, I see the girl of our youth with the remarkable mint green eyes.

About six years ago, another friend had a full facelift. She looked great. But she looked great before because she was always a beautiful woman. A year and a half ago, she took a misstep as she got out of her husband’s BMW SUV, and fell on her head. Today, despite the best possible medical care, she remains unable to talk or do anything else for herself. It doesn’t matter that her skin is smooth.

Many years ago, my best friend visited a plastic surgeon. $20,000. That’s what a facelift would cost. When she told him she couldn’t afford that, he said, “If you want to look 20 years younger, smile.”

Old age doesn’t happen all at once. We know the years are moving along, but for decades we feel good and we look good. I laugh when I read about women in their 20s and 30s getting procedures or see ads touting how great a 25-year-old looks. Of course, she looks great—she’s young.

When I look at old picture of me in my 20s, not a line on my face, I think I look unfinished. I was pretty, but without any lines, my face is a blank canvas upon which life and character were still to be written.

 Yep, that’s me at 20


We’ve all seen the people who didn’t know when to stop. After a while, they look like caricatures of themselves. They’re only recognizable by their voices.

Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning and pass by my bathroom mirror, I’m startled by the person looking back at me. “What the hell happened!” I think or say out loud. I don’t stay with that thought and instead, change it to, “That girl needs a smile.” And as I smile at the older lady in the mirror, this smile radiates through my body, elevates my mood, and I dance off to the next thing I need to do. I’m now ageless, more a happy little girl than a woman with many decades behind her.

The secret to anti-aging? I’m going to tell you.

There’s a photograph of my mother and father taken on November 18th, 1961. My Dad, despite his sparse dark hair, was handsome and vibrant. Mom was blonde and slender in her shiny gold designer dress. They both smile.

This was the last picture taken of him. Two days later, Dad was dead. He had just celebrated his 48th birthday a week before.

There are many other pictures of my mother taken as her life moved forward. Blonde for quite a while, then gray, silver, and finally, white. Her face changed too as it filled with lines.

You see, she had the privilege of aging and died days before she turned 91.

Dad remains forever unchanged. Forever young.

Dad found the anti-aging secret, the only one that actually works. It’s called dying young.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer the years added to my life along with any lines.