Let Me Tell You Something About Getting Older

There's a funny thing that happens once you cross the threshold from 30 to 40 and it's kind of a magical thing if you ask me. Nobody expects you to look a certain way anymore.

In your 20s you're kind of forced fed this image of the way you should look -- the way you would look if you were beautiful/sexy/desirable and that was is always thin, busty, perfectly hairless, thin, with long thick hair, sporting lashes three times longer than the average human being, thin and most of all pouty and always always always looking "sexy" (at least Vogue's definition of "sexy.")

In your thirties, you struggle through this phase where you slowly let go of that look because you're married or you're a mom or you have a career. Many of us (myself included) go through a backlash period where we dress older than we are, more conservative, sometime even downright dowdy. Our identities have shifted from being the party-girl, the college co-ed, the free spirit and instead we embrace the maternal, the solid, the traditional.

But then somewhere along the way, you start to ease out of the Mom-mode -- and I would argue that this happens about the time your kids are in school -- and you find yourself in the push-up bra section, the V-neck section again, the knee high boot section. But it's not the same. This time you're dressing for YOU. Not for your friends, not for the boys you want to attract, not to make a good impression on your mother-in-law. Nope.

You're buying the clothes that YOU like, that make YOU feel strong and powerful and sexy (and this kind of sexy, this genuine kind of sexy is about feeling fun and flirty and self-confident and just a little impishly naughty and not about being all angry and pouty and looking like you're ferocious and unapproachable) and you're learning to shop for the body you have.

It's a liberating feeling to present yourself according to your own idea of the perfect image. For me it means super short hair, salt and pepper hair, plunging necklines, big bold chunky jewelry, being plus sized and still wearing clothes that conform to my shape (goodbye tenting T-shirts and yoga pants!), funky ankle boots and a smile -- oh do I love to wear a great big smile with my twinkly eyes. Gunther feel in love with that smile and those eyes so I know they're my very best feature.

And you know the funny thing? After two decades of trying (and failing) to conform to the look that the media's been trying to force down my throat, I've finally, and in my own perfect way, found the style that makes ME the most attractive, the most beautiful, the sexiest, and the happiest.

I embrace what I look like now, I revel in clothes that make me feel good and shoes that make me feel fun and funky. And you won't find them in a magazine and you won't see them on the red carpet and you'll never find them in fashion ads but you will see them on ME and I will rock those clothes with attitude. Because once you start dressing for yourself, you become the most beautiful YOU you can be.