The woman staring back in the mirror keeps changing, and Kimberly Rash isn't always sure who she's looking at anymore.
In this heartfelt and unfiltered episode, Kimberly opens up about the strange, funny, and sometimes frustrating experience of watching her body and face shift with age. She talks honestly about catching unexpected glimpses of herself, grieving her younger body and its 19 and a half inch waist, and navigating the chaos of hormones, weight redistribution, and skin changes, all while insisting that missing her younger self doesn't mean she wants her back. Kimberly reflects on the wisdom, boundaries, and confidence she has gained that her 25 year old self never had, and reframes beauty as something rooted in presence and self ownership rather than approval from others.
By the end, Kimberly lands on a simple truth: she doesn't need to look younger, she just wants to keep looking more like herself. She closes by encouraging listeners to release the negative self talk about aging and rise into the confident, wise person they're becoming.
Transcripts
Older me
Kimberly: [:
Kimberly: And I think, "Wait, why does my face look like that?" Granted, I do know that it is from an underneath, which is the worst way to take a photo of yourself. But sometimes you're just like, "Was not expecting her." and I don't mean that in a mean way. I don't hate that as a woman looking back at me I don't like what I see.
start to see my face now or [:
Kimberly: Sometimes I see a lot of my grandmother in me. I have her nose, And I have my dad's, like, eyes and cheekbones. So when I sometimes am at a certain angle, I can like... I see myself and I'm like, "Oh, that's weird. I actually look like the older version of grandma," where my sister looks a lot more like the younger version of my grandmother in certain angles.
Kimberly: And sometimes I look like my mom, and sometimes I look like my dad, and sometimes it just... Sometimes I just look like Kimberly. But sometimes I am a little surprised at what I see, you know? And my brain just doesn't age at the same speed as my reflection, right? There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a thing.
band. I still dream. I still [:
Kimberly: Even though you still act like you're 35, evidently you're 51." And I like to say 51 young, because I don't wanna take this as an I'm aging, getting old and decrepit episode, but I am maturing, and I'm gonna live a longer life than this. I hope to live another 30 to 40 years. But it is still weird, and no one tells you about that part.
Kimberly: We're all allowed to miss how we used to look, right? I think that everyone's like, "Ooh, love every wrinkle. Celebrate every gray hair. You've earned them." Okay, I do. I really actually do. I am growing in my gray hair right now, and it's actually a really pretty gray. I actually very much like it. and it is beautiful.
it out, and then, like, six [:
Kimberly: I can look at pictures of me and say, "I had a 19-and-a-half-inch waist." I could miss my 19-and-a-half-inch waist. That doesn't make me bad or not love myself in my older years. It just sometimes makes you sad because it does go by so quickly. And I honestly think, like, sometimes when I wake up, I'm like, " How am I already this age?
ul for my body now and think [:
Kimberly: Or, "When did I start getting like that weird twitch?" I don't know And then comes all the decisions. Do you Botox? Do you not Botox? Do you wear makeup? Do you not wear makeup? Are you able to lose weight? Is this impossible for you at this point? do you wear the sexy outfit or do you sit in fear of people being like, "Who does she think she is wearing that that outfit at her age?"
Kimberly: You have to change your skincare, and none of that automatically means that you don't like yourself or that I don't like myself. I don't think accepting myself means I'm never allowed to wanna change something about myself
Kimberly: And bodies change. And if you're a woman, I don't know honestly how it is for men because I'm not a man. I can only tell you what I see observing a man, because I'm married to one. I can say that, yeah, he gets a little more crickety. But like most men, he ages well. My dad ages like fine wine.
Kimberly: my [:
Kimberly: It's that same face. When people meet him, they're like, "Oh, you look like this guy that..." And through life, my husband has always looked like someone different. He has looked like Kevin Bacon. He's looked like, the guy from Meet the Parents. He's si- he looked like Tom Brady. He looked like Mark Wahlberg, and like in the face.
erly, and when I look in the [:
Kimberly: And sometimes I miss Kim King. I'm allowed to. I was a tiny little patootie thing
Kimberly: And changing our bodies as we get older is annoying. Our hormones are going all whacked. Our weight distribution is like, I'm sorry, I didn't even know I could hold weight in that area. My hair, I don't really hate my hair. Honestly, my hair's great. I'll leave that alone. My energy's up, my energy's down.
Kimberly: My sleep, I am overheating, I am underheated, I am freezing, I am hot. I finally get it all under control and we get me all leveled out and then next thing you know it's back and it's wilder than it was before
will suddenly operate under [:
Kimberly: We're not doing that anymore." Because women can feel like they're losing control of a body that we've lived in our entire lives. And this isn't to turn this into a menopause episode, it's just acknowledging that it's frustrating as frig. It just is. And this actually happens a lot with women in autoimmune disorders, too.
Kimberly: if you've got any kind of illness that is something like that, weight and body inflammation changes the way you look all the time, and I've been dealing with this for, 30 years, and it's frustrating as shit. Excuse my language And women should be able to say anything they want about themselves and the changes of their body without someone being like, "Aging is a privilege."
% where I go, "What in the [:
Kimberly: I'm not 85, for the love of God. But I do think in a beauty culture, it makes women feel like there's an expiration date on their desirability. Though I do feel that in this day and age, older women look way younger than older women used to. Can we go back to The Golden Girls? Can we talk about how all those chicks in that house were supposedly my age right now, and they looked like they were 75?
Kimberly: so I get it. I still think that we look damn good and amazing in a general whole, but it still doesn't mean that you don't have your own insecurities, you don't have your own doubts, you don't have your own frustrations. You're allowed to look in the mirror and be like, " Who the hell are you today?
last night, you looked like [:
Kimberly: Don't worry." And in the end, you're like, "Yeah, that's great. It doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be frustrated You can still be frustrated. Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop trying, doesn't mean I'm not always gonna try to improve myself and keep myself youthful and healthy and do the things I need to do to be vital.
Kimberly: But sometimes when I take a look, I'm like, "Damn, girl. Damn."
Kimberly: And I'm not the only one
Kimberly: You know, what if there's freedom hiding inside of some of that, right? Because maybe we don't need everyone looking anymore. maybe we just are starting to decide whose gaze actually matters to us. Yes, of course my husband's gaze matters to me
Kimberly: But [:
Kimberly: I get frustrated with weight gain. you look at yourself as a younger person, and sometimes you miss that you once could wear whatever you wanted,
Kimberly: Or when people say, "Oh yeah, you should have met your mom when she was in her 20s. She was beautiful." I'm like, "What? Am I not beautiful now? what did I become a rag doll? what, what just happened? What am I, a wet rat? What is happening?" But I also know that with all the stupid things, weight gain, graying hair, weird ass weight gain in weird places, all the crazy things I've gained so much more.
approval. I don't need that [:
Kimberly: And I learned what I know now
Kimberly: Younger me wouldn't have had to survive the things that she survived if I was me then. But I wasn't But that's how I met all the people that I love now. That's how I became the person that I am now And all that version of me came after me being young and vital and youthful. So maybe my skin was smoother, but I didn't have my wisdom.
Kimberly: Maybe my waist was smaller, but I didn't have boundaries
my freedom that I have now. [:
Kimberly: I can miss the younger version of myself as I age. Doesn't mean I want her back. There's definitely some things if I could go back tomorrow to 20 to 24-year-old me, there are decisions that I would make that would change the course of what my life would have turned into now, and I definitely probably would still go back and make those changes
Kimberly: Because you will always have regret for things that you weren't able to do or weren't brave enough to do. But having the knowledge that I have now, going back to my early 20s, I would've played that whole scenario out a lot different
Kimberly: So if I got offered back my 25-year-old Kimmy body, size 0, 97 pounds doing me, would I take it? Hell yes. Though 97's way too skinny. Like 125 would be good. 120, 125. But if the deal to have that body would be I had to be that version of me again, I don't think I would do it
rned if you did that, right? [:
Kimberly: She was never told her worth. I don't want that for her. I don't wanna be her. I like this version
Kimberly: And when we're younger, beauty can just feel like something other people confirm for us, right? Someone looks at us, someone compliments us, someone chooses us, someone desires us, and maybe beauty becomes something different now. It's our presence. It's our confidence. It's how we make people feel.
tiful." Maybe it's, "I still [:
Kimberly: So yeah, the woman in my mirror is changing. Sometimes I like what I see and way sometimes I do not. Sometimes I miss the things that aren't coming back. Sometimes I don't recognize her immediately, and sometimes I look at her and think, " God, you've lived." You've loved people, you have lost people, you have raised people, you have mucked things up, you have started over, you've changed your mind.
Kimberly: You survived things you thought would break you, and somehow you're still curious about what's next So no, I don't have to love every wrinkle. I don't have to pretend I enjoy every part of getting older. But I also refuse to spend the rest of my life mourning a younger woman while completely overlooking the woman that I became
Kimberly: Maybe I don't need to look younger. Maybe I just wanna keep looking more like myself
