A listener production.
Hello, my beautiful listeners.
You know how I love to jump into your big talk feed
every fortnight and talk about stuff
that I've been thinking about,
or things that have been happening to me
that I want to share with you.
And you know what I want to share with you?
Is it better being an older cover girl?
Why I want to share this with you
is I'm pretty excited because at the moment,
I am on the cover of the Australian Women's Weekly
Now for me, that is a dream come true.
I grew up with the Women's Weekly magazine.
My mum would always get it.
And so to in fact be on the cover of it,
especially for their Christmas edition,
I can't tell you what it means to me.
So it brought up a whole lot of different ideas for me
about how does it feel as a 52 year old woman
being on the cover of a mag?
And also how then does that make me feel
when I look back upon my younger years?
Because some of you may not know
that I was a model in inverted commas.
I didn't model for long, mind you.
It was sort of a means to an end.
It was in between me taking some time off
between finishing school and uni,
but it was an amazing way for me to travel.
I'd never been on a plane to go overseas
until I headed off to Germany
to begin my international modelling career.
Now, when I say international modelling career,
that probably conjures up images of Paris
and high fashion and elegance and glamour.
Let me assure you that was not the case for me at all.
Of course I would have loved that.
I mean, what young woman doesn't dream of modelling in Paris,
the fashion capital of the world?
But no, I found myself in Germany,
which I didn't realise at the time,
but is the catalogue capital of the world.
This is in the 90s.
So this was a long time before the internet, obviously.
It was the late 80s, early 90s.
And in Germany, people would buy a lot of their clothes
They'd be sent these massive catalogues
and they'd flick through and say,
yes, I want to buy this, this, this and this.
So there was money to be made doing that.
And I thought, hey, why not?
I'll start in Germany and then who knows what might happen,
but let me tell you what happened.
The highlight of my modelling career
was doing a TV commercial for washing detergent.
And I remember wearing like a black crop top and underpants
and putting the detergent into a front-end loader.
And this was a big moment for me.
This was a big TV commercial.
Do you know, I was cut from the final edit.
So even before I'd begun my foray into TV commercials,
so no wonder I'm a crap housewife now.
I mean, I couldn't even do it as a young woman.
So, you know, there was that moment,
I got cut from the TV commercial.
I don't know what was wrong, but for some reason,
the clients in inverted commas didn't like me.
And then also as well, what I found myself doing
was many of these catalogues.
And I would frequently be wearing,
you know, those shiny tracksuits
that Kath and Kim loved to wear.
It was that kind of look with the zip up in the front,
shininess, lots of colour, nothing remotely cool about it.
So I'd been modelling those.
And the other thing that somehow my look provoked in people
in casting agents was camping catalogues.
Now I'm not a camper.
I do not like to bushwalk.
Even though I like to hug a tree, I'm not a bushwalker.
So here I am on the other side of the world,
modelling camping catalogues.
And I'll never forget, I was on the side of a mountaintop.
There was ice and snow everywhere.
And I was modelling an ice pick and crampons.
Now, I thought a cramp you got with your period,
but no, crampons are things that you cramp onto your feet
when you are climbing up a mountain.
So you can dig the spikes into the side of the mountain.
And I remember the photographer looking at me saying,
oh, do you think you could look a little more natural,
a little more relaxed?
And I was like, I'm a girl from Australia.
I haven't really seen snow before,
let alone go mountain climbing.
How on earth am I meant to look natural
holding an ice pick, wearing crampons?
So I have never seen those pictures,
but I think if I did, I would wet my pants now
because I mean, what was I thinking?
But you know what?
I had the best time for that year overseas.
I'd never travelled, I'd never been out of Australia before.
And here I was living in Germany.
I was based between Munich and Hamburg.
And then I was able to travel on the weekends
or take time off and travel
with all of these amazing other young people that I'd met.
But even though, yes, it was an amazing time,
it makes me think again about,
is it better being an older cover girl?
And again, I would say, yes, yes, yes.
I think back to me during that time,
and I wasn't confident.
I obviously dreamt of being on a cover as a young woman.
I remember beautiful Alison Bray,
who of course we've had on the podcast.
And I wanted to be her.
She was on the cover of Dolly magazine.
And I would like to think,
oh, I could be on a cover now that I'm overseas
and an international model in inverted commas.
But no, I wasn't going to be on a cover.
And also I was very insecure with how I looked
and how I presented in the world.
And isn't that funny listeners that when we're younger,
we tie ourselves up in knots
about everything that we're missing,
everything that we're not.
And I look back at pictures of me during this time.
And I think, oh, Jessica, what were you thinking?
You were this glorious young woman.
Why were you anxious about your bum and your stretch marks
and not being pretty enough,
not getting the modeling job, being overlooked
and other people somehow being thought to be better than you.
And I think that's almost a hazard of being young
because even if someone was to tell me that,
and I'm sure my mum did in the letters at the time.
And of course I wasn't taking my mum's advice.
I was thinking, oh no, I wasn't good enough
or my boobs weren't big enough.
Because this was at the time
when it was all about the supermodels
and the Amazon women with big hair and big boobs.
And I was pretty scrawny and skinny.
I mean, I love things scrawny and skinny.
But when I was younger, I was sort of thinking,
oh, wouldn't it be nice to have bigger boobs
and just be more womanly?
And again, I look back and I think, what were you doing?
You were perfect the way you are.
And if only I could tell my younger self that.
I mean, I hear myself saying that very thing
to my glorious daughters who were just exquisite
both inside and out,
but they'll be concerned about some seemingly minor thing.
But it's almost this risk of when we're younger
that we amplify our flaws
as opposed to seeing the beauty in them.
And that is why it is so much better
being an older cover girl.
So for me, having my photo taken as a 52-year-old
wearing these amazing red gowns
for the Australian Women's Weekly,
I felt invincible.
I felt beautiful and I felt powerful.
And that is such a thing to feel.
And I reckon as women, we need to own that.
We don't need to make excuses for who we are,
or where we've come to in life.
Sometimes we underplay our achievements.
I know I do that because there's almost that part of me
that thinks, oh, no, no, I can't sort of big note myself.
And this isn't big noting myself.
This is actually thinking, you know what?
I'm at a moment now where I'm standing in my power
and I'm seeing that for all that it means
and for the beauty that that brings me.
I know it's the cliche, but for me,
that beauty is the comfort that comes
from being happy in my skin.
I am not perfect.
I am messy, as you know, fellow Crab Housewives amongst you.
I'm also hopeless at returning people's phone calls
and those sorts of things.
And there's a lot of other things
that I wish I could do differently in my life,
but that's okay because I know I am enough
with who I am now.
And that is why now, being a cover girl,
that beats any idea of being on Dolly
or on some sort of European magazine cover,
even though just quietly, that wouldn't be too bad either
to be able to show my daughters.
But it's a wonderful thing for me
to think, look at how far you have come.
I think about the ups and downs in my life,
both professionally and personally.
And often when you're in the midst of those times,
you never think it will change.
You never think you will feel joy again.
You never think people will want to hear from you again.
You know, professionally, there was a time
when no one would return my phone calls
and I thought that was it for me.
And I was thinking, how do I reinvent myself?
And as an older, more mature woman,
that takes time to get to that place.
And what I love now is I know who I am.
I'm imperfect, I'm quirky, I'm crazy, I'm eccentric,
I'm compassionate, I'm kind, I'm funny, I'm smart, I'm wise,
but I'm comfy in my skin.
And that is what I would like for you to think
as you listen to me talk to you.
My Christmas wish for you, my beautiful listeners,
because you give me so much through the year.
I cannot tell you what it means to get
direct messages from you,
to have you come up to me in the street
and say how much you love the podcast.
I cannot tell you what that means to both me
and to my amazing producer, Nick McClure,
because what we bring you is something
that is very close to our hearts.
These are conversations that we love having,
that we crave to have with people.
And for us, it is a great gift
to be able to share that with you each fortnight
and then obviously every week when I pop in
to answer a big question.
So my Christmas wish, my gift for you
is that you feel comfy in your skin,
that you revel in your beauty and how glorious you are,
that you are older cover girls in your own lives,
that you are your own main character.
This is a phrase that I learnt from my daughters actually.
They say it in almost a, oh, come on, mum,
stop being the main character,
meaning the main person in your life.
But you know what, I reckon we're at a stage
where we can own being the main character in our lives.
So I want you all to be beautiful cover girls
and main characters in your life.
That is my Christmas wish and gift for you.
And as you go into this festive season,
please be gentle on yourself.
Christmas is not like the airbrushed cover.
Christmas can be messy, it can be chaotic
and it can bring up all sorts of trauma
because often we are brought together with people
that sometimes we don't really like very much.
Why do we have to spend time with them?
Perhaps take the pressure off
and decide not to spend time with people
you don't like this Christmas season.
But what I'm getting at is do what brings you joy,
celebrate in the way that brings you joy
rather than thinking, oh, what am I missing out on?
Or they look like they're having a better time
or a happier time.
We're all just doing our best.
We're all dealing with all sorts of different things.
So go for joy, go for being that cover girl,
my beautiful listeners.
And I wish you the happiest and joyous of holiday times
and so much love.
And thank you for giving me so very much this year.