I Used to Think This Was Vanity
I’ve noticed something fascinating happening to women in their forties. At some point, completely without warning, we all become deeply committed to discussing our bodies in public places. Not graphically. Not dramatically. Just… constantly.
A casual coffee date now sounds like a multidisciplinary care conference. One friend is discussing hormone replacement therapy with the precision of a research scientist. Another is explaining why she suddenly owns three different magnesium supplements and apparently they all do different things. Someone else is passionately defending the emotional benefits of weight training. Someone inevitably says the phrase “nervous system regulation,” and everyone nods solemnly like we’re filming a documentary series called Women Who Are Suddenly Stretching More. Twenty years ago we were inhaling french fries and talking about crushes.
Now we’re like:
“How’s your sleep?”
“What’s your ferritin?”
“Are you strength training yet?”
“Wait, your doctor said what?”
Honestly, I love us for it. There’s something both hilarious and oddly beautiful about the fact that women eventually stop pretending with each other. Not the polished version. The real version. The “my joints suddenly make noise now” version. The “one glass of wine can ruin tomorrow” version. The “I booked a therapy appointment and immediately felt better just knowing I booked it” version. The maintenance version.
And maybe I notice all of this differently because I arrived at this conversation earlier than most of my friends did. I went through presurgical menopause in my twenties, which at the time felt less like joining a club and more like accidentally walking into the wrong classroom halfway through the semester. Nobody around me was talking about hormones yet. Or sleep disruption. Or hot flashes. Or bone density. Or why your body suddenly develops strong opinions about things it tolerated perfectly fine six months earlier.
Meanwhile, I was in my twenties trying to understand what was happening inside my own body while everyone else still felt largely invincible. And to be fair, I think we all did back then. Your twenties are such an aggressively confident decade physically. You sleep four hours, drink questionable cocktails, survive entirely on coffee and misplaced confidence, and somehow still believe wellness is a personality trait instead of an active relationship.
At least I did.
I thought taking care of myself meant handling things efficiently. Get the appointment, take the medication, move on, continue functioning. Which honestly, is also how I approached almost everything else in life.
I became very skilled at functioning.
A lot of women do. Women like me. Women who know how to keep going. Women who can organize everyone else’s crisis while quietly negotiating with their own body in the background. Women who are capable, dependable, emotionally intelligent, productive, resilient and absolutely exhausted in ways they barely acknowledge.
We handle things. We adapt. We continue.
And after awhile, functioning starts to feel so normal that you stop asking whether you actually feel well. That’s the part I think shook me most. Not aging itself.
The awareness.
The realization that your body isn’t just some silent vehicle carrying your brain around from obligation to obligation. At some point you realize your body has been trying to communicate with you all along. Sometimes gently. Sometimes like a woman repeatedly tapping a microphone saying, “Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?”
And that’s the part nobody really explains about getting older. It isn’t just physical. It’s relational. You stop experiencing your body as something that quietly follows you around and start realizing:
Oh.
We’re co-authoring this life together.
That realization changes things. Not in a catastrophic way. In a clarifying way.
I’ve realized how much of adulthood is just maintenance reframed as wisdom. The routines I once associated with “getting older” now feel strangely sacred to me. Going for walks with Gigi after dinner. Lifting weights and yes, joining the pilates bandwagon. Sleeping enough. Stretching because apparently this is who I am now. Learning how stress actually lives in your body instead of pretending your eye twitch is “probably nothing.” Drinking water like it’s a legitimate personal accomplishment. Which honestly, at this point? It is.
And maybe the biggest shift of all is how openly women talk to each other now. I don’t remember women being this honest when I was younger. Or maybe they were and I simply wasn’t old enough to hear it yet. But now? There’s so much less performance.
Women will sit across from each other stirring overpriced oat milk lattes and casually discuss anxiety medication, colonoscopies, pelvic floor therapy, grief, cortisol, burnout, mammograms, protein goals, boundaries, loneliness, and the emotional consequences of poor sleep, all within ninety minutes. And somehow none of it feels depressing. It feels intimate. It feels like we collectively decided we’re too tired to perform perfection for each other anymore.
There’s something deeply comforting about another woman saying:
“Oh my God, me too.”
“No seriously, I thought it was just me.”
“Wait, your doctor said that too?”
Those conversations feel oddly tender to me now. Not because we’re falling apart. Because we’re finally paying attention.
I used to think all of this was vanity. The supplements. The skincare. The walks. The therapy. The protein. The endless conversations about wellness. Part of me thought it was just women trying to outrun aging. But I see it differently now.
I think maintenance is devotion.
Not obsession.
Not perfection.
Not optimization culture spiraling into twelve wellness podcasts and seventy supplements you keep forgetting to take. Just attention. Care. Participation. The small repeated acts that quietly support a life.
And honestly, I think this shift has happened emotionally for me too. For years, most of my self-care was really just recovery. Get functional again. Get through the week. Push the exhaustion slightly farther down the road.
But sustaining yourself is different. It asks a different question. Not:
“How do I keep performing at this pace?”
But:
“What actually helps me stay connected to myself while living my life?”
There’s a difference between survival-care and sustaining-care. Eventually, I think many women reach a point where we stop wanting to recover from our lives and start wanting to build lives we don’t constantly need to recover from.
And honestly, underneath all the supplement conversations and hormone discussions and group texts about protein intake, what women are really saying to each other is probably something closer to:
“Why am I tired after doing literally three things?”
“Wait, so we all wake up at 3 a.m. now?”
“I swear to God if one more doctor tells me to reduce stress…”
“I miss when a glass of wine felt fun instead of medically adventurous.”
“Do I need hormones or a vacation or potassium? Nobody knows.”
“Honestly? I’d like sex that involves a little more enthusiasm and a little less strategic scheduling.”
“I’d like to stop treating my vibrator like a member of the household.”
“I don’t even need to look twenty-five anymore. I’d settle for hydrated and emotionally stable.”
And somehow underneath all the sarcasm and supplement recommendations and memes about cortisol, there’s something strangely tender happening.
Women are finally talking honestly about what it feels like to live inside a changing body while still wanting a vibrant life. Not just survival. Not just functioning. A real life. Energy. Desire. Strength. Joy. Connection. Better sleep. Better boundaries. Feeling at home in ourselves again.
Maybe that’s what all those conversations were really about. Not aging. Not vanity.
Just women reminding each other that we’re worth taking care of.
