Aging Imperfectly

I stopped buying expensive skincare products and started enjoying my one precious life on earth.

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On the set of the first TV writing job I got, I was called into a meeting with an older male exec about potentially directing a segment. He took one look at me and said, “How old are you? You look 12.” 

I was 29, and I was offended. How dare he think I’m not qualified just because I look young? A 29-year-old man would be treated like he’s 40, not 12. He’d be given a whole episode to direct. But young women aren’t taken seriously.

Had this happened just a few years later, I would have kissed that exec on the mouth. That’s right, I would’ve gotten myself canceled just to hear I looked like a child. 

Let me walk you through this change of heart.

I had a babyface until I was 29. When I started noticing my face changing for the very first time it was in the middle of a global pandemic. I spent all day staring at myself on Zoom, channeling my anxiety into every fine line and thinking: I am getting old and I must stop it.

This was scary not just for vanity reasons, although okay yes, those exist too. But more than that, actually noticing myself aging served as a daily reminder of my own mortality. This is a side effect of getting older I never contemplated. I knew I’d get wrinkles. I didn’t know I’d see them and think: I’m running out of time to make my dreams come true, I’m wasting my one precious life on earth, why did I spend so much time on Twitter in my 20s?

Simultaneously, one of my parents got sick. Seeing them deteriorate broke my heart, death felt closer and more real than ever before, and my parents' mortality, and my own, consumed me. 

Unsure where to put my fear of death, I chose to confront it head on, in a sensible and thoughtful way: By heavily investing in skincare. 

I bought every recommended product and device, an LED Mask, the NuFace, serums, moisturizers, toners… do those even do anything?! The only problem is that I knew nothing about these products. So I mixed retinol and glycolic acid and lactic acid and Vitamin C. For those of you who don’t understand those words, I essentially gave myself chemical peels every night, inevitably only aging me faster. But on the bright side, I did go broke doing it.

I spent hundreds of dollars on this LED mask, does it do anything? A year and a half later, I can report that I genuinely have no idea.

Alas, my expensive skincare habit did not relieve me of constantly thinking about my own death. I still wondered what the point of my life was. Did any of my art matter if I was just going to die? I was paralyzed by my own existential dread.

I tried new methods. I read the Tibetan Book of Living & Dying (highly recommend), I meditated regularly, I traveled the world. I changed the goal from success to happiness, and it was the most effective way to start enjoying my life. It also brought me in direct conflict with my own desire to achieve, and therefore, with my perfectionism. 

Through this journey, I realized that to overcome my existentialism, I had to first face my perfectionism head-on. 

Our culture’s obsession with female aging makes us strive for perfection, and perfect, to the old guys who built this collapsing capitalist society, means young. At a certain age, as a woman, there is nothing you can do: Society simply doesn’t give a shit about you.

I’ve been caught in the trap of perfectionism for a very long time – I just hadn’t thought about it in terms of aging. Instead, it plagued my creativity. 

From the moment I started writing and performing, I wanted to be the best, or nothing at all.

My clearest memory of this is from a Middle School acting class. Acting was my dream, and I wanted to be a star.  Our teacher asked us to all go around and make up the first line of a monologue.  People said things like “The room was orange,” or “I’ve never forgotten what he told me.”

When it got to me, I said “pass.” It wasn’t a line. I literally passed my turn to the next kid. 

Even as a middle schooler, I put so much pressure on myself. If I said a mediocre line, everybody would think I was mediocre. When really, inside of me, I knew I had the potential to be great.

Perfectionism holds us back from the opportunity to fulfill greatness because we never get to move through the good. To try, to fail, to improve, to play.

My writing suffered from this as well.  

Recently, when I was at my parent’s house going through old stuff, I found something special: My very first screenplay that I wrote when I was 14, aptly titled, The Beginning. It’s the story of a girl who decided to disobey her parents and join the Peace Corps after high school, instead of going to college. In West Africa, she falls in love with another volunteer and has to juggle saving the rainforest, with losing her virginity. 

I know. I’m a genius.

To this day, nobody else has read the entire script. I didn’t share it with my parents or with my friends. I didn’t submit it to festivals, or use it to get into teenage screenwriting programs. I forgive my 14-year-old self for this. But I feel for her, too. She was so excited to write it, she was so proud of it, and then, inevitably, too terrified to share it. 

Why couldn’t I just be excited about finishing a screenplay? Why did I fear it wasn’t good enough, and that I had to hide it in my room, for nobody to ever see? Perfectionism brings doubt, and doubt kills creative freedom and joy.

At a live show this weekend, I read parts of this essay out loud, and then performed scenes from The Beginning, which were hilarious and great and horrible at the same time. It was the most fun I’ve had performing in years. I’m so happy for my 14-year-old self that her script entertained a room almost 20 years later.

Performing with Sma, who I met on my Costa Rica retreat this year and who I’m now lucky to call a friend.

Soon I’ll be in my mid-30s. It’s an age where I find my youth coming to an end. I’m definitely still young. But, if a 70-year-old billionaire was dating me, it wouldn’t gross everybody out. It would still gross a LOT of people out, but I’m a proper fucking adult. I’m no longer in the part in my life in which it feels like everything is in front of me, waiting for me to take it. I’m now, simply, in it, perhaps a little too politely trying to determine what is mine to take. 

But I’m also not chasing perfection anymore, so I’m a little less afraid. I am going to die one day, and I hope I will look old when I do, because that will be a gift. 

When I move into the next universe, I know I will have lived an incredible life if I continue accepting that where I am is good enough. I aim now to focus on my days. On making each day good, and not perfect. On creating a life in which I don’t punish myself for mistakes, or feel bad about not yet reaching my potential, but one in which I’m fully alive, each day, embracing and sharing wherever I am. 

I’m so excited to be hosting a writing & yoga retreat in Greece in June, 2023. Registration is open now, and early bird pricing continues until December 1st. Email writeandflow@gmail.com with any questions or to register.

Joyce and Sharilyn on the Italy retreat in September