Once, when I was about 23-years old, I slept wrong, squishing my face into an awkward position for several hours, and when I awoke I had a deep crease going up my forehead, sharply accenting one of my furrow lines. To my bewildered young mind, this appeared as a giant wrinkle, and everything I’d proclaimed about my standards of beauty flew out the window. I genuinely thought that this was how wrinkles surfaced, suddenly and overnight, and I was convinced it was only a matter of time before my porcelain skin would be a roadmap of stress-lines and failed plans. Yes, I equate age with failure – but more on that later.
On this particular morning, at this particular stage in my life, prior to seeing the misidentified wrinkle, I was anti age-defying anything. The thought of liposuction or a face-lift was as horrific to me then as Toddlers and Tiaras is to me now. I was so tired of the media and what it had done to our images of beauty, I was completely against nipping or tucking, pulling, sucking or peeling anything.
Oh, how times change, which mine did in the blink of a groggy eye. As soon as I saw that wrinkle, my mind instantly plotted exactly how I was going to get the money to pay for the Botox, and somehow I’d figured out how to do it before anyone laid eyes on me that morning. Desperate times, people. . .
As luck would have it, the stupid crease wore itself out, and my lovely 23-year-old skin plumped back up until I was the glowing image of youthful beauty I’d been when I went to sleep the night before. I can talk about myself like this because now, even just 10 years later, I realize how youthful 23 really is, and the lesson is one I’ve not easily forgotten.
I used to make fun of my mother for the arsenal of day creams, night creams, undereye creams, neck and throat creams, eyelid, hand, body, wrinkle creams, vitamin D, E, and A oil – every kind of cream, lotion and oil a single mom could afford. To my untrained eye, the woman always looked the exact same. The truth is, none of those creams probably did her a $40 ounce of good, but now I understand it was the appearance of an effort. My mother wasn’t rich, and if she could have afforded Botox, or even knew that it existed, I may have been raised by Tammy Faye Baker. But in an age of Jafra and Avon, Royal Jelly and the Home Shopping Network, this was what she had to work with, and as I reach the age my mother was when the creams started to take over the bathroom, I realize I am just like her – but willing to push even harder to maintain my vanity.
Why? Because every day closer to my grave is a day closer to an unanswered dream. It is physically impossible for me to do everything I want in this lifetime, and every day is another wasted adventure. Yes, there are wonderful, fulfilling things along the way, but we aren’t getting any younger, and well, that’s the point. Beautiful people do exciting things. When I imagine traveling the world, it’s not the grandmother version of myself in my mind’s eye. If I’m being honest, the closer I get to old, the farther I get from opportunity. Before you know it, I will be the leopard-print-clad, Lita Ford wannabe inviting herself to parties and trying to explain how cool she was, “back in the day.”
No, I will not go quietly. Nowadays, it makes total sense to buy myself a boob job for my birthday. Botox no longer seems criminal, but a luxury. I’m still very conscious that the media has us all screwed up, and sure, I can rationalize that beauty comes from within. If a friend of mine were saying these same things to me, I’d tell her she was crazy and more beautiful than she would ever be with Botox or surgery, and that it’s a rite of passage to grow from a young woman into a fully realized, well-rounded goddess. While all of that is still true, I’m also beginning to see that 33 turns quickly into 40, then 50, and I know without a doubt that I’ll be looking back on my youthful 33-year-old face someday, longing for the day I looked this lovely. For that woman, I’m willing to look past the flaws I see now, but you bet your sweet, sagging ass, when the time comes to do something about it, this spring chicken will be the first in line.
To read part one, click Here.
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