Angela Kateemu
Dear Diary,
I went to the supermarket the other day with my hair in a messy bun, no make-up, in my comfy sweats, living my best I-don’t-care-today life. You know the vibe. Zero performance.
Zero pressure. Zero fu—well, you get it. So imagine my surprise when I heard, through the grapevine (because haters do not have the courage to say it to your face), that I have “let myself go.” Let myself go where, exactly? To get some eggs? We need to talk. About the ridiculous, soul-sucking, spirit-breaking pressure placed on women to be... immortal.
What is with this warped expectation that we should look like we are 28 forever, plump cheeks, perky breasts, snatched waists, firm-you-know-what? Like we are avatars in a video game who can be paused, tweaked, or re-coded at will. News flash: we are not immortal. We grow old. We get wrinkles. We sag.
We die. That is the natural order. And yet, the world treats aging in women like a personal failure. A betrayal. Like the audacity of a woman showing up with crow’s feet is offensive.
And God forbid her boobs point south or her laugh lines tell stories. Meanwhile, we are out here working 9-5s, raising kids, hustling side gigs, holding entire households together, and we are supposed to look fresh-faced, soft-voiced, peach-bottomed, and TikTok-ready 24/7? Make it make sense. And the double standard? Wild.
Men our age get revered for “aging like expensive whiskey.” Their beer bellies? “Cuddly.” Their greys? “Distinguished.” Their emotional unavailability? Just “growth pains.”
Enter the billion-dollar beauty industry, powered by female insecurity and male fantasy. Women are out here bleeding into beauty seats — getting poked, peeled, filled and filtered — only to be told they are trying too hard, not trying hard enough, or “refusing to age.”
At 28, I was a tomboy who did not give a flying flat-screen about having a bum. And 30 plus years of living on your terms later, you think I will give in to the pressure now? Just because some 20-year-olds with ring lights and Brazilian lifts are twerking their jelly? Well guess what, darling? This baddie is choosing something else. I am choosing rest over reinvention.
I am choosing joy over juggle. I am choosing to age gracefully or disgracefully whatever creams your tea! Because this face tells a story. These thighs hold my power. And if I have let anything go, it is the exhausting idea that I owe anyone eternal youth. Stay bold. Stay baddie. Stay Wrinkled.
—Love, The Kat
Baddie Rule of the Week:
If aging gracefully is a crime, colour me disgraceful.
Mini Manifesto:
I will not shrink, tweak, suck in, smooth out, or shut up just to soothe a fantasy.
I am not here to be preserved, I am here to live.
Wrinkled, wild, wise, and full of wonder.
And that, my love, is peak baddie energy.
