Age Before Beauty

It’s not the first time that I’ve been subjected to the attentions of a beautiful young man in the initial flush of his desires.

If only I had known back in my twenties how beautiful I really am, but the old adage about age before beauty so often holds true. For the pictures of that time bely the woman who stands before you now. It has been commented upon frequently that I look so much older back then. Was it just the hair and the fashion? Because, whilst that incarnation was young and fresh-faced without the smile lines around the eyes and mouth, she looks so worried. As if the weight of the world is on her shoulders. And she hides behind the huge curtain of 80s hair as if it is a protective shield.

My thirties photos are even worse with a marriage that I no longer understood and which gave no emotional satisfaction other than through my wonderful children. Frumpy and washed out, I look like the sheepdog nanny in Peter Pan. Unseen and unrespected, I was just there – picking up behind them and shepherding them to where they meant to be equipped with everything that they needed.

Flick forward to my early forties and things start to improve. The figure is just as svelte but a change of hairdresser meant a new, more modern haircut and there is an increased confidence about the face of the woman who stares defiantly out of the pictures. Now this could be because she is looking through the lens at the young cameraman, whose careful attentions had done so much to bolster up the foundations of her womanliness… or the presence nearby of another young Adonis whose youthful enthusiasm for her company is so totally unexpected and hugely flattering.

And, finally, now I approach the magic marker of half a century, I sigh over the facial lines and bodily imperfections – but everyone else sees an independent woman who is supreme in the knowledge of the power of her smile.

So, no, it isn’t the first time that I have been on the receiving end of some tentative lust from a much younger man but this is the first time that such desire has been propogated and encouraged by his even younger wife. Of course, for him to have a second girlfriend would mean that she could fulfil her own carnal longings for someone else, guilt-free, with the added bonus of a possible threesome.

But is it just an inherent selfishness that drives her to fuel his long-held attraction now that he has the opportunity to be closer – or the fact that she too would like to be involved in a coupling?

Whatever the reasons, the new Joanna will not allow herself to become enmired in their personal melodrama. Her younger predecessor would have latched on to all this popularity with alacrity, not caring about the inner demons that would be awoken or the future problems that would ensue. She would see only attention – and milk it to feed her own Little Voice.

Building relationships after divorce is not going to be easy but older, wiser and recovering from anorexia, I can now see the bigger picture and behave accordingly. Secure in the love of the man who sustained me through the darkest of times, I am able to deflect without causing offence or damaging my new-found position on the higher ground.

I could look back and wish that the young woman in all those photographs had had more wisdom and self-respect or I can move forward and revel in the confidence that age before beauty has given me