Whoever coined the phrase “growing old gracefully” was a lonely,ugly woman who never had a date in high school and was waitinguntil mid-age to finally snare the quarterback on her high schoolfootball team.

Obviously, the statement’s originator was not the highschool prom queen or the head of the cheerleading squad.
No woman over fifty who has any self-respect or pride can standin the front of her bathroom mirror and say that she’s genuinelyhappy to look like Mrs. Milhoag, her high school English teacher,affectionately referred to as Mrs. Warthog, who could have beenthe twin sister of your neighbor’s Shar-Pei. Remember, she was theteacher whose jowls flapped like a bat taking off when she turned herhead trying to catch that creep, Jimmy Wilkowski, throw the spitballacross the room at his true love, Susan Brzezinski.

Remember, the onewith the sagging jowls and puffy eyes whose body was so juicy thateven if Spanx had been invented back then she still couldn’t squeezeinto a size eighteen dress?

I can actually handle the sagging breasts and the cellulite thatcome with the aging process because you can cover them up withEscada and St. John clothing, and no one will be the wiser. In fact,women are jealous because you look so in-vogue. In-vogue. That’sthe code word for clothes that are so expensive and the material sothick and luxurious that no one focuses on the ripples of celluliteunderneath.

Let’s face it, there aren’t enough hours in the day to work, cookdinner, make sure your teenage children aren’t in jail, and exercise asufficient number of hours to burn off the cookies and chocolate barsso you can look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Something has to go, soobviously, what you can’t see, no one will know is wrinkled.

Even my husband noticed when my favorite pastime becamestanding in front of the bathroom mirror pulling the skin back so Icould see my heart-shaped jaw line. I think I read in Cosmo that thoseof us blessed with a heart-shaped face are the first to go because forforty-plus years, you’re used to that ugly, pointed chin, and then oneday you get up and look in the mirror—and shazam, your face lookslike a square.