Nele Somers | Sadness and difficult times take their toll on your skin; how a "coup de vieux" can sometimes take you by surprise.
What does grief do to your face? In episode 4 of The Cosmetic Conspiracy, Dr. Barbara Geusens talks to Nele Somers, lawyer and media personality, about aging, the desire to maintain control, and the moment a difficult period suddenly shows itself in the mirror.
Nele has long been consciously focused on health and aging. SPF 50, little sun, plenty of sleep, healthy food, hardly any sugar, and a vegetarian since she was sixteen. She read books on how to slow down the aging process. Or, as Barbara puts it so well: “longevity avant la lettre.”
But you can take that too far as well. “It was bordering on orthorexia.”
That urge for control took on a different meaning when her older sister passed away. For nine days, Nele barely slept. Grieving left her physically exhausted, and she suddenly saw in the mirror what such a period can do to a person.
"I've had moments where I looked in the mirror and thought: wow, those scars… They don't define me, but they do mark me."
Yet Nele is not afraid of getting older. Quite the contrary.
“If you don't want to grow old, you have to die young.”
Every birthday is something for her to celebrate. Every day she can walk around and breathe pain-free is a bonus. Consequently, her greatest concern regarding skin aging is not a wrinkle here or there, but the loss of volume that comes with the years.
And at the same time, she realizes how relative that concern is.
Perhaps she will live to be 102 and it makes sense to take good care of herself today. Perhaps she will only live to be fifty and it would be a shame to be constantly preoccupied with later.
“I am someone who thinks ahead. ‘Live in the moment’—that’s something I need to work on.”
That is perhaps the most difficult balance: taking good care of yourself without it becoming a battle against time. Because getting older doesn't just bring changes on the outside.
We also get something in return: experience, perspective, and wisdom.
Nele quoted something poignant in that regard: “Remember we all die.” Perhaps that is precisely the art: to care for the future, without forgetting to live today.
