Face It!

You get up in the morning and at some point you’ll look in the mirror, whether it’s part of your morning facial routine or you’re doing your hair or maybe you give yourself a smile and nod to start your day! The mirror reflects us back and day to day we don’t notice much of a change. If we were able to go back in time and stand next to our 17 year old self and compare faces, what changes would we see? Fine lines? Wrinkles? Acne scars? Freckles? General ageing? There would be a difference.

We generally don’t think about ageing day to day, but we are aware our body changes throughout our lives but rarely give it a second thought. Ageing is inevitable, we can’t stop it, no miracle cure has been found. There is no magic water or potion we can take that will stop us from losing our youth! We can try fancy expensive creams or serums and they can help our face feel taught or plumper and can reduce wrinkles and fine lines, but it is unlikely you are going to see radical changes, and certainly not instantly.

Imagine you woke up on a Monday looking 25 and then on the Tuesday you look in the mirror and and OMG you’re 80! We are relatively unaware of getting older. There is that saying, ‘You are as old as you feel’. It’s true really, our age is a number and I think everyone has an age that they get to, where they don’t feel any older, for me, at the moment, it’s 24!

I’m not someone who worries about how I look and if I’m ageing ok. Once when I was in the States, I was in a shopping mall and a guy approached me and tried to sell me some eye cream, saying he could make those wrinkles disappear. I was a bit insulted that he automatically thought it was something I’d be self conscious of or even care about! But I gave in and sat while he applied the cream to one eye area, so he could do a comparison. True enough it had improved, but the results were only temporary, though this is something he skipped over. As he tried to get me to buy the cream for my eyes, I told him, it wasn’t for me, I’m proud of those lines, I’ve laughed a lot and earned those deep lines!

You are probably wondering what the point of this post is, well I saw a video online about a dad, Frans Hofmeester, who had taken a video of his daughter, Lotte, each week from the day she was born until she was 20. The video is time lapsed and it is amazing to watch her transform from a baby into a teenager all within 5 minutes. You can clearly see she has good days and bad. If you want to take a look, it is called Portrait of Lotte, 0 to 20 years.

This video reappeared to me online last week and whilst away celebrating Scott’s birthday, it made me think about how much we really change year to year. It will likely be subtle, but there will be slight changes likely around the eyes and mouth.

I’m not bothered really about how I look or age, for me it’s how I feel and if I’m in good health. I have fine lines, deep lines and wrinkles around my eyes, they are my laughter lines. I laugh a lot, so when I see them, I’m reminded, that I don’t take life to seriously and I have fun!

Anyway, to my point, I thought it would be interesting to take a photo of myself each week for a year, or monthly for 5 years to see how much I age or change. It could go beyond that for say 10 or even 20 years and I’m sure the results would be interesting. And alongside this, I’m going to note how I’m feeling to see if I can see any correlation between how I look and feel. I may likely do this as a video, so it’s all in one. I’ll let you know how I get on!

As an aside, a video diary is a great way to capture how you’re feeling at any given moment, particularly if you don’t want to keep a written diary. It can help you though tough times and it gives you the opportunity to look back and see how far you’ve come. It may feel awkward at first, but give it a go and see how you get on.

We all age and the pressure can be on us to try and look as young as you can. The truth is, you’ve got to age your way, in your style and do what makes you happy. There is no right or wrong way.

I hope your week is filled with plenty of laughter and if you start taking a photo or doing a video diary then let me know how you get on.

Take care and look after you!

Love Emma xx 😍