Aging: Personal Fragrance...

​I believe people give off a fragrance - one that is beyond anything biological (or the scrumptious scented beauty products they are wearing). I’m meaning more of a mixture of their attitude, facial expressions, and emotions that seems to conglomerate into one giant eau de perfume: a personal fragrance that says "howdy" (I'm a Texan) before I even have a chance to really greet the person or take in the physical appearance. (I would argue that it's more powerful than physical appearance.)

My parents tried to instill this idea in me while I was a little girl – but I just didn’t get it. I saw someone beautiful, and I could not move past the beauty. It might be the artist in me. But the point is, I excused poor behavior because he/she was so beautiful. A beautiful girl was just sassy. A handsome guy with a bad attitude was just moody and mysterious. Unfortunately, this thinking greatly limited me in how I saw the individual as opposed to how she or he really was.

The freeing thing about our “fragrance” is that it’s really what makes people attractive. Now when I meet a friend, I see her, but physical features sort of take a back seat.  Instead of only seeing the physical appearance of my friend, her attitude and mood and speech is really what grabs me first. I see my friend, but I also see what makes her, well, her; a tiny film of all the memories we have shared, all the conversations we’ve had, all the good times (and the bad) play through my mind in a flash overtaking my emotions and senses and ultimately my view of her. And it overcomes me – just like a spritz of potent perfume.

And as I’ve aged, I see that a pretty outfit or a new hairstyle can’t erase history because the physical beauty of someone becomes incredibly secondary and their personality and how they’ve made me feel – past and present – is what takes the center stage and makes them beautiful (or not) in my eyes. It’s a dimension of attractiveness that defies the physical and embraces the unseen. It’s a satisfying facet of beauty that anyone can possess, and it won’t fade with age.