I sincerely believe that women are far better off embracing the years they’ve lived, rather than pretending that they’ve never happened. We’ve all seen countless photos of older female (and sometimes barely out of their twenties) celebrities that have altered their bodies to look younger. More times than not, they end up looking nothing like their former selves. Sadly, there are those that have completely sacrificed beauty to the knife and have come out looking somewhat alien.

Last year I was taking an afternoon to myself, reading magazines and sipping coffee at Borders. I was fulfilling my guilty pleasure of losing myself in a fashion magazine. I believe it was the Vogue age issue. So of course they had models in their 20′s, 30′s, 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and possibly even their 70′s. I came across this photo of a gorgeous woman that seemed ageless to me. A lovely face framed by long silver hair, wearing a simple, yet chic outfit. Yes, I realize that all the photos were airbrushed. Even so, there was something radiant about this woman. She didn’t cut her hair short, like many women do when their hair turns grey. She seemed so confident and comfortable in her skin. I snapped a picture of the page to remind myself of the way I hoped to feel when I reached her age, what ever that age was.