Maybe it's the word "sexy" where things get interesting.
At twenty it seemed simple. Sexy was a certain body, a short dress, attention, glances, and the natural assumption that youth alone was already something desirable.
Today sexy means something different to me. It has less to do with whether every man in the room finds me attractive. It has much more to do with whether I feel like a woman myself. And maybe that's one of the loveliest differences between 25 and 50.
I no longer need permission to feel sexy
There's a strange expectation placed on women. We're supposed to stay attractive, but please not show too clearly that we know it. We're allowed to be sexy, as long as it stays "age-appropriate." At some point, that gets exhausting.
Maybe today I simply want to wear a dress because I feel fantastic in it. Not because I want to look twenty. Not because I need to impress a man.
But because when I look in the mirror I think: Damn right.
Attractiveness has surprisingly little to do with perfection. I know beautiful women who walk into a room and still try to become invisible. And I know women who don't fit any classic beauty ideal and yet have a presence that's hard to look away from. What's the difference? Maybe presence.
And then there's the word CRAZY
Not in the sense of insane. But as the counterpart to that eternal "be reasonable." By 40 or 50, we've done plenty of reasonable things. We've paid bills, kept appointments, taken care of children, worked, organized, compromised, and carried responsibility.
Maybe we're allowed to sometimes do something again that serves no reasonable purpose. Not every decision has to improve our résumé. Some are allowed to simply make us feel alive.
