I recently read the interview with Linda Evangelista, about the pain and trauma she is experiencing after a body sculpt procedure, that has been wildly successful for millions of customers, but was not at all successful for her. The story has left me feeling heavy-hearted for a person I don’t even know. She was without a doubt one of my favorites from that era of super models with big hair and long legs, before the rise of what I think they called “heroin chic” which to my eye was never attractive, for the models or the clothes, and certainly did not seem “chic.” I loved that era of the late 80’s and early 90’s and while yes, it was impossible for any average female to identify with, it was beautiful to the eye, and to think that a woman so stupendously successful for being pretty, has chosen to hide away for years after a bad cosmetic procedure has made me so sad. I beat myself up with negative self talk too often; I used to have a flawless forehead with not even a tiny wrinkle and used to have a flat hard belly too, neither of which is the truth now, and the person I see in the mirror has not looked like what I “see” in my mind for decades. At yoga the other day, one of the ladies said, “we all just have to find a way to like what we are now” and I know she is right, but time is a body snatcher and for some, like this former super model, maybe it’s harder to accept than for us regular people. For her, the results of the negative self talk now has her full of pain and regret.

To be honest, if I could afford to have a doctor shoot poison into my forehead to make it wrinkle free, I probably would, it is one of the main reasons I wear head wraps and hats so much, and here is another thing…I can’t afford to DO some of the things that rich people do when they feel Time the body snatcher getting too close! I have no problem at all with plastic surgery or cosmetic procedures, I mean, that lady who has made her face look like a cat is rather disturbing, and the doctor who agreed to her requests should probably not be allowed to practice plastic surgery any more, but I feel like if you have the funds to make things happen that you wish for, WELL GOOD ON YOU! because, most of us can’t afford to fix or change what we would like to fix or change!

Her face on so many of the magazine covers over so many years, and from the beginning of George Michael’s famous video for the song FREEDOM was to me, perfection…her perfect teeth, perfect brows, perfect cheek bones and that perfect forehead with just a wisp of that super funky hair…oh how I love and so miss weird and funky hair from that era! At the time, as a young single mother of a pre-schooler, her face and her body and the clothes it looked built for, well, it was everything I wished for but could not be or could not have. All these years later, while I definitely have more than an inch to pinch and nothing about my face or my body looks like I wish I could make it look, I am in general rather content in my life, extra jiggles and wiggles and wrinkles and all…I felt sad for all her sadness and I suppose it made me recognize that I am glad for my overall happiness. I don’t really like how I look, compared to my younger self, but I am not stuck hiding away or in agony…her story was sad.

I guess what made me the most sad for her is that somebody so spectacularly beautiful could not find peace with the regular pace of aging. It’s life, it’s living, it happens…All the money and all of the success can’t keep Time away…it is a body snatcher. It got me thinking about how much we women often equate our worth and wellness with what we see in the mirror. I do know several women who are in as good, or even better physical shape now, in their fifties and sixties as they were in their twenties, but I know far more women like myself, who have not seen in the mirror what we see in our mind’s eyes, for decades!!!

I suppose if I had spent my life as a super model, being paid for being pretty and being thin, and then found myself feeling both not pretty nor thin, it would be rather traumatizing to my psyche, certainly more than what I believe I “suffer,” which really is just feeling down about myself sometimes, and sometimes filled with mean-talk between my ears, despite all the amazing things my body does every day and how super capable and strong it is! I suppose her mean talk to herself forced her to try something new to “fix” what she thought was in need of fixing. This former super model, is in agony both physically and mentally, and suffering terribly at present, or so it seems from this article, from deep emotional trauma for having tried to get a cosmetic procedure that was supposed to improve that which Time the body snatcher had taken away, and it made me sad for one of the most beautiful people in the world. Body image, body distortion by your own mind, is not uncommon for women, be they “mad fit” or plump! AND here we have a woman our age who infamously would “not get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day” feeling as bad about herself as so many of us “regular” women do, or actually, by both the tone of the article in People magazine and her essay on Instagram, I suspect she feels infinitely worse about herself than I do, or any of us do really!

“All we have to do now, is take these lies and make them true somehow” is how the chorus of that song goes…We women notoriously tell ourselves lies all the time don’t we?? That if we don’t LOOK a certain way we can’t ACT a certain way, or WEAR special things, or don’t DESERVE TO HAVE CERTAIN THINGS or don’t deserve to be TREATED a certain way…Lies, Lies, Lies. Here I am pondering, contemplating, looks?? worth??? value???? the whole world around us is a mess and I can’t stop thinking about this former super-model, of my age, who went to get a cosmetic procedure that was “supposed” to give her the toning results she was looking for, as she aged, to feel better about herself, and sadly for her she is one of the very few for whom the procedure does not work, at all. It has me thinking about contentment and how if we let it, Time the body snatcher will snatch our positive thoughts as well as our youthful bodies…

How we LOOK is not WHO we are. We are WORTH whatever we think we DESERVE or WANT. Our VALUE as a person has nothing to do with what size jeans we wear…I for one have many things about my own body I would like to improve upon, and I will continue to try to keep Time the Body Snatcher from getting too close, but remember friends that we are not what we look like we are what we do, and Time the body snatcher can’t take our goodness away…Talk pretty to yourself today friends, and for today love the body you are in right now, just as you are. Like the tv commercials used to say, “love the skin you’re in” and more importantly, “You’re worth it!”