HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'Sometimes the mirror is a b*tch'.

Wrinkles and blotches and bits that sag. Shadows and creases and crepe.

My face is changing and I'm faking being fine with it. Maybe you are, too. 

I'm sure that wasn't there yesterday, the mirror says, as I lean into her, minus my bifocal contact lenses with their comforting blur. Poking at a crevice. Holding up an eyelid. Pulling back my hairline. Reaching for a tweezer, a potion, a cover-all. 

Sometimes it takes all the will in the world not to want to scrape it off. 

I know it doesn't matter. I know that how we look is the least interesting thing about us.

And yet. 

On those days, I just want to STOP IT. Stop the change, stop the slide, stop the fold, stop the inevitable. 

Freeze it in time. Sand it, smoothe it, lift it, fill it. 

Maybe I will. 

Maybe if I did that, I wouldn't notice, anymore, that I am ageing. Maybe fewer lines would distract me from my undulating hormones, that little grunt as I stand, the advancing migraine, the birthday numbers counting up to nowhere, the days I get to spend with my people counting down.

But also, if I do that, try to trick the mirror, another trap yawns opens. 

Don't you dare look like you're trying too hard. So sad. So desperate. What have you done to your face? 

So many opinions, so much criticism, so much wasted energy on this little patch of fleshy real estate.

I am part of that noise. Women's faces are a regular topic of discussion on Mamamia Out Loud, the podcast I co-host five times a week. And now on MID, the podcast for Gen X women. I have resisted, for 15 episodes, talking to my smart grown-up guests about their faces because I know it doesn't matter. I know it's the least interesting thing about us. And yet. Today I do, with the smart (and yes, beautiful) Ali Daddo.

Listen to the full episode of MID with Ali Daddo. Post continues after podcast.

Our faces are impossible to decouple from our experience of growing older. They are the shop window, they're the marketing, they're the thin-sliced, first-glance categorisation of the box that gets ticked when the world looks at us: 18-30, 30-45? OVER 50?

We tell ourselves, people like me, that when we're talking and writing about ageing and faces, we are walking a line of criticising not the individual woman, but the broader, youth-obsessed culture. But still, the judgements settle on the women, they always do. Nicole Kidman? Too much work. Justine Bateman? So brave. Kate Winslet? Just the right amount of bothered.

The celebrated sweet-spot for caring about what we look like, apparently, is "just enough". Care so much about your face that it keeps you close enough to youth for a little of its sparkle to stick to your skin. But any more than that, and you're So Vain. 

It's not that deep, my mirror might say. Beauty is fun. 

Beauty is fun when it's about painting a rainbow on your eyelid. Beauty isn't so fun when it's about trying to fix something we're being told is broken but can't, actually, be stopped. 

There's a dollop of moral judgement in all these conversations, and I hold up my hand to say that my spoon is in there, adding and stirring. There's something deep inside me, coded from my upbringing, imprinted from an involuntary value system that tells me embracing age is 'good' and trying to disguise, fight and hide it is 'bad'. That one of those choices is pure and natural and true, and one of them comes from a place of fear and must be resisted, denied. 

I'm trying to unpick it. It's nonsense, and I know it. We are evolving to use what's available to us to survive, thrive, adapt. There is no "wrong" in that. 

But back to the mirror. If it just bloody stopped changing, I could pretend time wasn't passing. 

Instead, the change is accelerating. In a year, I know I that the picture I am despairing over today will appear ridiculously youthful.

"Despairing" is a strong word. One I should save for things worthy of distress. Illness and loss and stubbed toes in the dark. 

Or maybe it's exactly the right one, because allowing our faces to grow older is a failure, somehow, of health, commitment, resources. 

Our faces signal to the world how much we care. How together we are. How well we nurture ourselves.

Does an errant eyebrow mean we're messy? An unfilled line that we've surrendered? 

Beauty is a beast when you're mid because ageing is a privilege but looking young is everything, the entire world says.

Why, my mirror asks me, as I peer too close, do YOU care about this? 

I'm not a supermodel. Or a celebrity. My worth isn't tied to my forehead lines. I know, because I'm always saying it, that getting to b*tch about wrinkles is a lottery-winning luck so many others would give anything for. I know that, deep in my bones. These are stripes of pride, blotches of wisdom, folds of experience.

Watch: Here's what ageism looks like in the media. Post continues after video.

Those words are so true it hurts. We all feel it. We didn't get this wise without knowing about insides versus outsides. the futility of relentless comparison, or the subtle manipulation of shifting beauty standards.

But still, even with all our wisdom, some days, that mirror is a f**king b*tch. I said it. 

My face is changing and I'm busy faking being fine with it. Maybe one day, I won't have to fake it at all.

I'll truly believe that it doesn't matter. That how we look is the least interesting thing about us.

One day, the hard-fought wisdom that drew those fine lines will settle into every cell in my body, and I'll be comfortable and confident in my serum-lathered skin.

I can't wait. I'll see you there.

*This is an edited and expanded version of the introduction to But What Have You Done To Your Face, an episode of the MID podcast, You can listen to it HERE.

Feature Image: Getty.