Gwyneth Paltrow Poses in Bikini as She Shares How She’s Embracing “Wrinkles” Ahead of 50th Birthday

Gwyneth Paltrow will soon light up candles for her 50th birthday, but until then, she’s reflecting on what this milestone means to her.

The Iron Man actress posted a black-and-white bikini photo on Instagram on Sept. 22, which she linked out to a lengthy personal essay about self-acceptance. As Paltrow approaches her own special day on Sept. 27, she said she’s feeling the weight of the moment as a time of growth and reflection.

She reflected on how aging has changed her body, including the “silver hair and fine lines.”

“My body, a map of the evidence of all the days, is less timeless,” she wrote. “Scarred from oven burns, a finger smashed in a window long ago, the birth of a child.”

Paltrow, though, said she’s accepted these signs of age on her body.

“And while I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone, I have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept,” she wrote on Goop, the website of her wellness and lifestyle company. “I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity.”