Mirror mirror on the wall…
I watch the zillion makeover shows we are now being bombarded with on TV (How far are we from a Makeover Channel—all makeovers, all the time?) but instead of being 
simply amazed at the transformation, I’m astounded that Susie Schlub, in her sweats or mom jeans, oversize frumpy top (whether she is oversize or not) and sneakers didn’t do something before she was ambushed-or secretly submitted 
as “deserving” (which means they’re tired of her looking like hell) by a well-meaning daughter or friend. I am particularly intrigued by the programs that show Ms. Frump actually looking pretty fly at some point in her past. What happened?
I sit in front of the boob tube transfixed, not by the jaw dropping results, but by the fact that Susie 
didn’t seem to notice that her boobs were taking a nice nap on her waist before the Makeover Magician showed her what a proper bra could do. Is poor tired, tragic, overworked Susie visually challenged? Does she live in a world without mirrors? How could she not know that her hairstyle, which was probably only marginally fashionable in 1982 is hopelessly outdated in the 21st Century?
How could she not know that her sensible denim skirt isn’t appropriate for every occasion—heck – that it’s hardly appropriate for ANY occasion? Couldn’t see that shoes with run 
over heels need a visit to the shoemaker or maybe just to be thrown out? Never mind the help available from fashion magazines, catalogs, stores, TV shows and movies. A plain old mirror—purchased at your local discount store and nailed on the inside of a closet door or even leaned against the wall— would have done the trick. Why oh why didn’t she see herself?
Then Susie Schlub is whisked off for some dazzling duds, a clever 
coiffure and magic makeup. And in the reveal, Voila! We have the modern, refreshed, jazzy— Susie Sharp! We’ve all seen these memorable moments and old Suze looks great! Mostly not the Naomi or Giselle unrealistic/unattainable standard we’ve been taught to compare ourselves too, but so much 
better than before that she’s hardly recognizable to herself. Then Susie breaks down and begins to weep—“I didn’t know I could look like this! Oh! Thank you. Thank you….” Now we’re not talking plastic surgery makeovers here—maybe a little teeth whitening – but the rest is the easy stuff.
And I’m still sitting there shaking my head wondering why didn’t you do this sooner? What were you waiting for?
The more I watched the clearer the answer became. These women, young and old, fat and thin, tall and short, married and single all had one thing in common. They had given up. Some may have given up before they started, some after getting married, having children, retiring, becoming ill, losing a job, husband, parent—but to a one, they had each become resigned to the idea that how they looked no longer mattered–that cute didn’t count anymore.
Well, I’m here to tell you that’s a big ol’ crock of “*ish”. CUTE STILL COUNTS. I will say it 
another way. CUTE ALWAYS COUNTS. It counted when you were a baby and your Mom dolled you up. It counted at six when you got that new dress to wear for your birthday party or Easter Sunday. It counted when you were fourteen and hoped “he” noticed how cute you looked in your heather blue box pleated mini skirt and matching knee socks. It counted at twenty five when you were trying to 
impress them on the job. It counted when you planning to say “I do.” It counted when you put on those awful, (pre-Liz Lange stylish maternity-wear) “hatching jackets” with the dumb, sweet Peter Pan collar and bow meant to conceal your baby bump. And CUTE COUNTS now too, you have just forgotten how much.
I will concede that I probably have a predisposition to Cute Counting I understand (because I was too young to remember- but there is photographic evidence) that when I was little, in the small southern town where I was born, I was “everybody’s baby” and was gifted accordingly. My mother, in order to make sure I had a chance to wear all the adorable clothes I was given, took to changing my outfits, from hair ribbons right down to socks, several times a day.So CUTE was a part of my agenda before I knew or had any control over it. I admit, remnants of the changing clothes a few times a day thing are still a part of my life.
Even in the housedress hausfrau 1950’s, my mother always did her hair and wore lipstick 
every single day. My dad, who worked in construction and dressed accordingly, had his Sunday and Friday/Saturday “Up the Street” suits, sports jackets and tuxedoes tailor made. As a girl, I remember going to Charlie Baker Clothier with him to look at fabric swatches and pick out buttons—because all of it mattered. Now back to my mom. In her early 80’s she brought quite unexpectedly to a halt by some fairly debilitating health issues. Even after months of being house or hospital bound—she rolled her hair every night and put on her good
robe for company because she never stopped being concerned about her appearance. Her first trip out was to the hairdresser. A few years later, when my sister went shopping and returned with a selection of dresses for Mom to choose from for an upcoming outdoor summer wedding— Mom hinted in a not so subtle aside, “and you know I think I’d also like one of those long flowy peasant skirts everyone’s wearing this spring,” My sister got her a purple one.
So whether it’s nature or nature, my awareness of the idea that how you look affects how you feel, and how you feel affects how others see and treat you, is now so thoroughly ingrained that it no longer matters from whence it cometh.
What does matter is that you goeth out and get some CUTE. Do not let the dreaded closet doldrums—which creeps and chokes like kudzu—take over. Do not surrender. There’s help aplenty available.
So if you are still boxed in business suits leftover from our “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar/Dress for Success” days of the 70’s and 80’s, dressing up to go out to dinner in the same outfit you wore to the Mother’s Day luncheon at church, and your donning your fancy formal duds means a dowdy evening gown that screams “Queen Mum”, or a repurposed Bridesmaid’s dress circa 1987 you drag from the back of the closet, you may not be totally lost, but your trail of breadcrumbs has definitely gone stale.
It’s time to get yourself back on the road to CUTE.
Get help if you need it. You go to the doctor, dentist, and hairdresser for their expertise don’t you? Every major department store has a personal shopper and it’s her job to help you find clothes that suit your body and your lifestyle requirements, whatever the size of your butt or your budget.
Contrary to what you may think, what you wear is not solely about vanity, it is largely about self-esteem. Back in the days when I used to commentate chubbette (plus-size) fashion shows for Hanes Fitting Pretty Pantyhose, in department stores around the country, I was not nearly as interested in what was on the runway as I was in convincing members of my audience that they could and should treat themselves as well as they did others—that being on the “stout” side— didn’t mean that unflattering clothing was somehow a just punishment for avoirdupois. It was a hard fought battle and I suspect this one may be too.
But I won much of the time—no actually the women in the audience won. They went into the dressing room and tried on something new and fashionable and more often than not, they walked out of that store with much more than a new outfit. They also had a new attitude.
Then it was fat frump I was fighting, now it’s age frump (and maybe fat frump too.) But do not let the unlined, uncellulited youth corps get you down. There’s a lot of clothing 
between teenage trashy—oops! I mean teenage trendy, and resignation retirement rags. No you can’t dress like your fifteen year old daughter or the twenty-three year old hostess at your favorite restaurant, but even without belly baring shirts (no navel piercing please) and low rise pants (I also suggest that you pass on the above-the-crack, tramp-stamp tattoo) BELIEVE ME, you can stay hot—or get hot for the first time!
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Re-read this Lesson
Write “Cute Still Counts” 100 times.
Say “Cute Still Counts” 100 times—it’s now your mantra.
Go shopping!
Try on something you ordinarily wouldn’t. (Other than short shorts and a tee shirt that says “Jail Bait” in glitter.) THIS IS IMPORTANT!!
If you look cute, not shocking mind you, CUTE (that’s what the three-way mirror is for) BUY IT!
THEN WEAR IT!
and relaxation–not only told you what was there, they told you how to feel about it. Of course by now, I was no longer even listening to him. I was off on my own tangent because I could already see how his Real, Imaginary, Complex, Prime, Negative, Positive, Rational, Irrational, Sublime NUMBERS fit exactly what I thought about aging.
There’s Chronological Age (We know how this one works—count up from birth), Biological Age (Medical tests indicate how well or poorly our bodies are handling the passing of time), then we have Intellectual Age (Are we too old to be this dumb?) Emotional Age and Social Age (Are we mature? Do we play well with others?)
if you feel thirty-five, so be it.
expensive cut of meat? Enough said.
Like the Harpies of mythology, she is fierce, bad-tempered and relentless. She’s the one who makes you wonder if you’re good enough. By now her nagging little voice has been whispering bits and pieces of self doubt into your psychic ear for decades, so long in fact, that at this juncture it seems like harmless white noise—you aren’t even aware of her presence any more. But she’s anything but harmless and she needs to go. Now.
first words back when you were a little girl and she was just a little Harpy in Training (H.I.T.). You hadn’t begun to “develop” yet—as they used to say, much less develop any anti-Harpy skills. So she went to work on your young, defenseless, happy little self. “How 
come you don’t have a Barbie book bag?” (Translation: The CUTE girls all have Barbie book bags while you have the practical blue one your mother insisted would last a couple of years.) “Why don’t you have streamers on your bike?” (Translation: But even if you get streamers what if 
they’re not the right color?) 
“Only a B in geography?” (Translation: Not quite as smart as Melissa huh?) “If you could jump higher you would have made the volleyball team.” (Translation: You’re too tall/short/fat/awkward— what ever gave you the idea you could be an athlete?)
And so the plague begins. Its most telling symptom is unconscious comparison—almost always to other women. We compare ourselves to our friends, sisters, mothers, cousins, co-workers, neighbors, strangers, bosses, movie stars, and sadly even to our daughters. Sometimes we know we’re doing it, but mostly we’re unaware of how many times a day we think of ourselves in terms of how we measure up to someone else, or someone else’s expectations. Those expectations are, more often than not, a presumption on our part—
because if we don’t think we’re good enough, how can anyone else possibly miss the bright flashing neon marquee on our forehead announcing our long list of shortcomings to all the world? Believe me, despite the fact that it blinds YOU nearly every time you look at yourself, THEY don’t see it until you point it out. Why? Because they’re far too busy worrying if you are scrutinizing their list of personal inadequacies.
enjoy it! Just think—you’ve been investing in your very own personal 501K (50 for FIFTY of course, the 1 is for YOU) for a few decades and it’s now time to start enjoying some dividends!
we saw exhibited by women around us—it’s the way we learned “how to be.” We barrel into our teens and twenties having acquired, mostly by osmosis, a very particular (and peculiar) skill set perfectly suited to managing relationships and keeping the peace. Women are nurturers right? And we are worthy apprentices. Years worth of subtle and not so subtle repetition have made us strong and capable, but at the same time resilient and malleable, kind of like Gumby. (I 
once called a friend Gumbyiesha because of the contortions she went through for a man.) We can twist into all kinds of misshapen versions of ourselves, ignoring the pain and discomfort, without becoming nonfunctional to the point where we are unable to respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of others— “Mom did you _______? Honey will you______? Where’s the ______?” We re-mold ourselves to fit the needs of 
those around us and keep going without even seeing how bent out of shape we’ve become. Does your back hurt? Your knees? Your shoulder? What part of yourself have you contorted for others? Sound familiar? Of course it does.
intuit what those around us want and need. We anticipate these desires and fulfill them—often before those around us even know what they need, we’ve taken care of it. And triumphantly, we arrive at fifty as sensei—teachers, masters, and in the long honored tradition, have been passing on what we know to the younger women in our lives. And so it goes.
should. This ritual, habitual, sacrifice of tossing oneself off the cliff to assure another spring or diving headfirst into the volcano in the misguided hope of preventing another eruption now feels completely “normal.”
anima rears her pretty little dissatisfied head and explodes all over the poor and unsuspecting. And while the near and dear to us stand there, stunned and dripping with our fallout, we (who can’t believe they are really that clueless) explain our sudden eruption of self-expression to the heretofore oblivious of “what we have done for them.” That’s why you hear so many women referring to their F (40 or 50) decade by another “F”. “I turned 50 and I said FUCKit/him/them!”
change until you do. And now presents a perfect opportunity re-think some of those lifelong pleasing behaviors. Apologize to your spouse/partner for years of treating them like the village idiot who was incapable of doing laundry or loading the dishwasher correctly and promise from now on things will be different. Let your grown and nearly grown children fend for themselves and work their way out of their own messes. They’ll figure it out—you did. (This will be addressed in a future lesson entitled: “NO KIDDING”)
You did the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. Now it’s your turn. You are empowered, authorized, entitled to seek self-satisfaction. So go ahead—I know it won’t be easy, but you have to start somewhere. . . or you might end up with a really bad case of the screaming meemies.
Come on—THINK. How many do you have? Guess what? If you have not murdered anyone, tripped an old lady who was crossing the street, pillaged a village, stolen candy from a baby OR you cannot come up with 50 things—congratulations—you have earned the right to give martyrdom a rest and enjoy your life!
FORGET Menopause. If you think that’s what growing older (and this blog) are about, I’m going to disappoint you. I’m not going to address this subject in the way you might be expecting— because that’s a health book, a psychology book, but not this little lesson about growing older. Every woman goes through menopause… we have since the beginning of time. It’s part of the cycle of life and it’s not gonna go away. Don’t let it become a crutch and a catchall excuse to be lazy and evil about everything else.
wet sheets, underwear ruined by a “visitor” you thought long-gone. 
And then there is the ever popular, unexpected “change-of-life-9-month- surprise.” I personally witnessed the latter when I was in high school and to their everlasting embarrassment, during our senior year, three of my friends’ mothers got pregnant, well past the time when anyone thought they would, or could.
Even worse it meant these middle-aged mothers were—you guessed it—having S.E.X., also well past the time when anyone thought they would or could. Egads! It didn’t matter that the S.E.X. was with their fathers—no that only made matters worse and implicated both parents in this untoward, inappropriate, appalling behavior. And at the end of nine months, each of my three friends had a brand new baby sister to wave “Bye-Bye” to as they headed off to college. My own parents, younger than I am now by a couple of decades, were quite probably also having S.E.X. (at least I hope so), but thank goodness, I had no new siblings to show for it.
Don’t get hung up on some outdated notion that your womanhood is something you’ll lose if you’re not reminded of it every 28 days. Or, that no longer being able to bear a child diminishes your femininity in some way. Even with the departing red sea, you are still you. And the only way you can lose you is to GIVE UP. Surrender yourself to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you allow to steal the “girl” in you right from under your own nose? Why would you let that happen just because your period stopped?
They wafted down from some exotic, contemplative mountain retreat on a cloud of inner peace to scatter their long-considered wisdom on us—the unguided and uncentered masses with our misaligned chakras and road-blocked chi. And if you don’t remember gurus, Google will.
your fuzzy slippers with a magnifying mirror examining your wrinkles, removing chin hairs and watching the life you wish was 
yours on the tube, like any other respectable middle-aged woman?”
Cute Still Counts 