I'm having a hard time dealing with this thing called aging. I used to be young and pretty, and then one day--almost overnight--I wasn't.

About ten years ago, while window shopping with a friend, I caught my reflection and was shocked to see crow's feet. We're not talking dainty little crow's feet. We're talking giant, prehistoric-size crow's feet. One of the lines trailed off down the side of my face. It took a while to get over that shock, but I did. After all, I've seen 25-year-olds with crow's feet, so at 30, it didn't seem such a terrible travesty.

Almost a decade went by without much further change and I was starting to think I looked pretty young for my age. Then all of a sudden I didn't. Overnight, my crow's feet had plenty of company from the lines on my forehead, and horror upon horrors--I had the faint etchings of lines above my upper lip. I may never get over the shock of seeing those for the first time.

As if that isn't enough, my hair is thinning, I seem to gain a couple of pounds a year and what muscle I used to have has completely disappeared as though it never existed. There's flab above my knees that no amount of exercising seems to firm up--not that I'm madly exercising anymore, mind you. And now I have a "stomach" I can no longer hold in--and my older sister informs me it's a fact of aging, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I resent that remark, and I resent her for making it. But I'll tell you what I really resent about this whole business of aging. It's that men don't seem to notice they are aging at all.

I recently received a forwarded email entitled "The Old Woman in the Mirror." The writer tells about an old woman who has been following her, trying to take over her life. She occasionally gets a glimpse of the old woman in a mirror or a storefront window. The woman is starting to harass her, sneaking into her house and hiding things so she can't find them, replacing books with others that look the same but have smaller print so she can't read them.

That story depressed me because that old woman has started showing up at my house--and she looks just like my mother.

I asked my friend Steve, who is my age, if he ever sees his father staring back at him when he looks in the mirror and he said, "What do you mean--like a ghost or something?"

I tried to explain about the email and received a blank stare in reply. "You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, do you?" I asked. He shook his head in confusion.

I tried again and asked him what he sees when he looks at himself in the mirror now as opposed to 15 years ago. He said, "I see me! I look exactly the same!" His voice was exuberant, self-assured. I could almost see him standing in caveman's garb, beating strongly on his chest, proclaiming his youthful appearance. I wanted to ask him if he was balding 15 years ago but I decided that if he doesn't see the difference, so much the better for him. Like most men, 20 years from now he'll probably still be posing in front of the mirror, flexing non-existent muscles, but seeing himself as he always has. We women, on the other hand, will be rushing through our daily toilettes, turning away from the mirror as quickly as we can, in the hopes of avoiding that reminder that we are aging.

And I resent it--I resent it heartily.

So what is it I want? Do I want men to be miserable, too? Do I want them to realize youthful beauty is slipping away and there's nothing they can do about it? Of course not, because it wouldn't make any difference if they did. In fact, maybe they do realize it, but their sense of self has never been wrapped up in how they look. Instead I want women to realize that beauty can't be seen in a mirror, and can't fade away with age.

And I want to believe it myself.