She Let Herself Go: The Most Misunderstood Season of Womanhood

Jul 20
5 min read

Woman’s face behind a fern in a soft woodland portrait with text: She Let Herself Go and The Most Misunderstood Season of Womanhood

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the phrase “She let herself go.”

I’m sure you’ve heard it murmured?

Maybe it was said about a woman who gained weight.

Or let her hair go gray.

Or stopped wearing makeup.

Or traded her heels for crocs.

Maybe you’ve even thought “wow, I really let myself go” when you caught your reflection in the mirror and see an older, more tired version of yourself then you remember.

“She let herself go” carries this assumption that we must constantly maintain and curate ourselves. As though our worth depends on how appealing we look.

I keep wondering, where did this phrase even came from?

And what is it asking us to hold onto?

Be pretty above all else.

I remember my grandmother telling me my hair was pretty and I should keep it long because boys liked long hair.

I wanted to be pretty and I wanted boys to like me, so I would pay a great deal of attention to my hair.

My grandmother adored me and said this with love. In her generation, being pretty was what secured a women to be chosen as a wife and taken care of. (she would be horrified a few years later when I dyed my hair neon pink). We think we've come a long way since then, but the messaging from her generation didn’t really disappear. It just changed form.

1950: Be a good girl, land a husband

2000: Be hott, but don’t be a slut.

We hear this kind of language before we’re old enough to question it. We tell ourselves it’s completely normal. Just like it is to hear women criticize their bodies. It’s part of every young woman's conditioning.

At 10 or 11 years old, I prayed to God for boobs. Looking back, it’s an equal parts hilarious and devastating example of how early we’re taught that desirability=worth.

At 14, I was honked at and catcalled walking down the street with a friend and, instead of feeling afraid, I felt almost proud. Like I had achieved something. Like being noticed by men meant I was winning in a game I didn't know I had signed up for.

If that doesn’t raise a systemic red flag, I don’t know what does.

This was the world many of us grew up in during the America’s Next Top Model era. We watched Britney Spears shave her head and get ripped apart by the mass media, and we all took notes.

“What a crazy bitch.”

“Look how fat she got.”

“She’s out of control.”

Maybe this is why the phrase “she let herself go” carries so much weight. We’re taught that prettiness is a currency that buys the approval we’re all want so badly.

The Hamster Wheel

At 19, I entered the beauty industry as a hairstylist.

In the first salon I worked in, makeup was mandatory. Nails had to be done. Sneakers weren’t allowed. This wasn’t just implied. It was in the employee handbook.

I spent my entire young adulthood wrestling with what it means to work in an industry built on superficiality, and wondering how to get off the hamster wheel.

Over the years, I started to notice the difference between self expression and self surveillance. How one builds self-esteem and one is a burden to maintain. It seems they often coincide.

People sit down in front of a mirror and ask me what I can do to make them look better.

Can you hide my wrinkles?

Can we cover the gray?

Can you make my forehead look smaller?

What hairstyle will make my double chin less obvious?

One woman asked if she could be turned away from the mirror because she couldn't bear to look at herself.

We aren’t okay.

Some days I just I want to shake everyone and scream,

“Wake up. None of this matters!”

But then I wouldn’t have a job.

And some days I catch my own reflection in the mirror while I’m working and think,

Have I let myself go?

Some days I’m too swept away doing other things that I rush out the door for work and forget to put makeup on.

I stopped fighting my natural waves and frizz. Mostly I throw it up in a clip.

And I wonder, am I slipping away? Or am I shedding the weight of wearing a mask?

Is it a sign of depression or am I taking back my power of choice?

Google Photos will hand me memories of past versions of myself,

The girl who got her nails done religiously every two or three weeks and worked hard to master winged eyeliner (I never did btw). A girl trying to create the illusion she had her life together.

And I’ll note how even twenty years younger and twenty pounds lighter, I hated the way my lower belly rolled out of my waistband. The stretch marks. The cellulite on my thighs.

The same places I pick on myself about to this day. And I'll feel sad for the girl who thought she had to try so hard to become something other than herself. Sad for all of us trapped in this no-win game.

The Most Misunderstood Season of Womanhood

Society tells women to hold onto their youth tightly.

But nature tells a different story.

Nature doesn't cling to what no longer serves its next season. And we have everything to learn from following her.

What I really geek out on, is the way all of these cycles overlap and mirror each other. Its a map I use to help me untangle the mess of life.

The summer solstice, marks the peak of life & growing energy before the slow turn toward releasing & resting.

After the summer solstice we shift into late summer, known to some as Lughnasadh. This season spans the month of August and carries us up to the autumn equinox in mid September. It's a time to honor the first harvest of our lives. What fruit has grown ripe on the vine.

Compare it to the lunar cycle, and this moment would correspond with the waning gibbous, slowly shedding incremental slivers of it’s fullness.

If we mapped that onto the cycle of a woman's life span, it might live somewhere in the "mid-life" range. Some may say is the “end of your best years”. But that old way of thinking is clearly more than ready for new interpretation.

I’ve always found it telling that we talk about women like we move neatly from Maiden to Mother to Crone, like there’s no terrain in between.

But there is.

It’s a whole ~~king~~queendom.

We might call her the matriarch.

The woman whose children have grown, (or who never had children at all.)

Who cares less about being the pretty and more about living purposefully.

Who begins choosing comfort over performance.

Boundaries over people pleasing.

And yet, we're told our best years happened back in spring, when we were only just becoming. We talk about this season of womanhood always as a decline, rather then what it is: a ripening.