Gwyneth Paltrow has accepted the signs of ageing on her body as she prepares to turn 50.

The Oscar-winning actress published an essay on her Goop website on Thursday in which she shared her “musings on a milestone” ahead of her 50th birthday on 27 September.

Although she has “no sense of time passed” mentally, Gwyneth is fully aware that her body is “less timeless” and features a collection of scars and marks that document the highs and lows of her life.

Addressing the signs of ageing, she wrote, “And while I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone, have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept. 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.”

Looking ahead to what she wants to achieve in her fifties and beyond, the Shakespeare in Love actress shared a list of her goals.

“I would like to slow down. I would like to retreat a little bit. I would like to make my circle smaller,” she wrote. “I would like to cook dinner more. I would like to see misunderstandings become understandings. I would like to continue to open the deepest part of myself to my husband (Brad Falchuk), even though it scares me. I would like to sing more, even if it’s just in the shower. I would like to tell anyone that had a negative experience with me that I am sorry. I would like to fully acknowledge myself.”

Gwyneth explained that she remembers her mother Blythe Danner’s 50th being a joyful occasion, while her late father Bruce Paltrow’s was a more sorrowful affair. She wondered how her children Apple, 18, and Moses, 16 – who she called “the greatest accomplishment of my life” – would remember her milestone.

“Perhaps their memory of it will be neither that I was solely elated, nor grieving the things I lost or did not bring to fruition. I hope that they can feel me feel all the things and hold in the complexity of that notion,” she considered.

“I really won’t know what it was like to turn 50 until much later, when I can reflect back from a higher perch, perhaps at one of their 50ths, hearts full and broken simultaneously (as that is life).”

Gwyneth’s essay was accompanied by a snap of her jumping in her garden in a silver bikini.

– Cover Media