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.”