The Lovely Advantages of Not Being Lovely

1. Strangers rarely say, "Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?" to the backside of an older woman as she loads groceries in the car trunk or a woman in her 50's dining with lady friends in their 60's whose feelings were hurt when everyone was young.

2. When a stranger tells a woman older than 55 or so that she is beautiful, she knows he is lying or potentially dangerous unless he's in his 80's or married to her.

3. A woman can hug a male friend or talk to him with their heads nearly touching in front of their own spouses, without incurring jealousy, because the spouses know he's asking if wrinkle creams might work for men or she is asking if he knows what her husband wants to do for his birthday. People when they get old whisper very loudly.

4. A retired husband no longer points to a woman his wife's age with a beautiful coiffure, wearing a tight suit, designer shoes and says, "I bet if you wanted to, you could look like her!"

5. Instead he says, "I'd hate to think how much she pays for a hairdresser, clothes and plastic surgery! I am so glad I married someone so careful with money like you, Honey."

6. When a woman is beautiful and marries a man who is kind, wonderful with kids, romantic and funny but not handsome, people assume he has money and she married it for him. If she gets a promotion, people wonder if she flirted or dated the boss to get it, and that's why she stayed late at the office each night.

7. The older one gets, the swifter the days pass and the slower one's feet move, causing time to reveal its precious nature, making it fitting to fling false eye lashes, high heels, pantie hose, facial masks, electric curlers and clothes that require starch and ironing into the wastebasket with our old self-imposed standards of how to be pretty.

8. One sees beauty in everyone young because youth is beautiful, and beauty in the elderly because age brings wisdom. In the dimming of eyesight, the eyes of the heart grow strong, able to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of all ages.

9. A friend is anyone who smiles or asks "How is your day going?" because the old requirements for choosing a bff fades away, as old best friends forever die, move far away, or lose their driver's license.

10. Husbands, if they age in a noble way, always see their wives not as she looks that day, but as he remembers she looked in the moments she was most dear and beautiful to him.

11. My husband swears I was most lovely to him a year ago when I touched his shoulder, raised his hospital bed, helped his lips find the straw in the ice water I held beneath his chin, and tried to explain why he woke up in Intensive Care.

12. He was most lovely to me whenever he told our sick daughter she could stay with us as long as she needed, even when she moved in with a son, and he insisted their dependence on us was not their failure but our pleasure.