Happy Halloween if you celebrate. We did a lot for two little munchkins who came to our door last night, but it was fun. Oh Corona, will you just give it a rest?? I think we’re all ready to be finished with you.

But today, drinking coffee in my pjs, I’m thinking about my face.

Can we talk about how I’m looking older? Can I tell you about my choices (which may be different from yours…and that’s okay.)

For me, all the delicious hormones of youth are gone now, and I’m not replacing them. I’m not botoxing. My hair is grey. My skin is a little thinner.

But my heart — my heart is beautiful.

And I’m guessing yours is, too.

Here’s the thing: do you care that my face is getting older? Do you mind that I have a huge teacher-frown-wrinkle on my forehead that shows I’ve listened and concentrated most of my life? Does it bother you that my skin isn’t snapping back to it, that I have age freckles, that all my parts that used to live up north are sliding a little southward?

No, you don’t. I’m sure you don’t.

I’m sure you love my wisdom and my friendship, my recipes and my cheerleading, my insistence that you can age and have fun, be yourself, grow older with grace and focus and energy.

Here’s what I think: I think it’s still worthwhile and important to scrub up and look lovely at every age. I’m all for pretty and FUN and enjoying our lives because, truly, we are all so lucky—despite the ‘hard’ that we all have.

But worrying about all the surface of me that I cannot control is not what I want to do.

I want to spend my last half loving my age. However many more years I get, I want to be comfortable and SHINE LIKE I AM.

If you guys have read The 10 Minute Fix you know that I like the work of Mel Robbins, an American coach, lawyer and speaker. She wrote this and I wanted to share (you can find her at melrobbins.com).

She’s right.

In my life, I feel proud of who I’ve become…and the people who matter to me really don’t mind one bit that I’m looking older. (If you’re one of the many beautiful strangers here who haven’t had coffee with me at my kitchen table — do you mind that I’m well and truly 54, and very unlike Nicole Kidman’s 53? Didn’t think so.)

Oh, yes, sometimes there’s this little voice in my head that says I have to convince people that I’ve still “got it” whatever IT is. But the truth talks a lot louder than that.

Truth is: we are here right now. We’re lucky for every day that adds a fine line to our faces. And I’m not going to spend one single moment worrying about whether this age, my age, is less beautiful than the last.

Let’s live it up, and love our age together…whatever that looks like for me and for you.

Catherine x

PS.

• Hello to all the new people this week! You’re so welcome here in my little corner of the internet.

• Like my sunnies?? Oh you guys, I’m starting to feel like a micro-influencer when I tell you where I got this and that…and honestly no one has asked me about them but I think they’re cute. Now I’m laughing at myself!! If you want to know, I bought them at H&M for $12 (current season). Similar here on amazon.