Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Aging stinks

When I say "Aging stinks," I'm not talking about getting older. Getting older is awesome. With age comes wisdom, more confidence, more acceptance. I'm probably in the place in my life that I've always been waiting for. My family says I was born 40. I never enjoyed going to bars or parties. I never drank or went out much, I always preferred to stay home and watch a movie or play games. I'm glad to not be in the dating world anymore. I do not miss one thing about being young and going out and dating.

The thing I miss is having a young body, skin and hair. I have a bit of a belly due to two pregnancies and c-sections, I'm fine with those. What I could do without is the achy back in the morning or when I get up from laying on my tummy. I could do without sore knees after I run. I could do without the whiskers that keep appearing. Seriously, I'm going to look like a man if they keep showing up at this rate. I told my mom that if I end up in a coma for some reason I need her to be sure to pluck my crazy, wiry hairs on my chin. If I come out of a coma with a beard I will not be happy. That goes for my mustache, too. Please, someone bleach me.

Since I'm not in a coma, I can take care of the hair issues. I can bleach or pluck every day if I have to. I'm having a harder time with my skin. I think I would be okay with wrinkles if my skin was smooth, clear and had even color. I never had many skin problems. Even as a teenager I only had the rare pimple. I guess I'm paying for that now. What is that? Plus, I'm a picker. So, if there is even a tiny bump, I have a compulsion to mess with it. I get out my extractor and go to work. It rarely ends well. It's almost always considerably worse when I'm finished. What would have been a tiny white or red bump becomes a large, red mess. At 37, my skin takes longer to heal so it sticks around for a long time.

In addition to my acne issues, I am battling uneven color. I guess it's damage from my many, many years of sun exposure. I spent my summers outside and (of course) we didn't use sunscreen at that time. I even fake baked. I did that up until we started trying to get pregnant. The spots and splotches are driving me batty. I said I was ok with wrinkles but I take that back. There are certain wrinkles I would be ok with. Like crows feet or the parenthesis caused from smiling. I do not like the creases under my eyes. They remind me of all the lines on my palm.

So, I have acne, uneven skin color (is that tone?), lines on my face. I'm not super vain but I would like to not be shocked when I look in the mirror. Seriously, when I look in the mirror I expect to see my 25 year old face. The face that I see when I look at my engagement photo. Sometimes I think it's a good thing my husband and I met 12 years ago because this is not the face he fell in love with.

I know there are remedies out there. I'd be willing to pay a pretty hefty amount for them if I knew they worked. ("Hefty" being relative. I mean hefty according to our budget. In actuality, it's probably not much to some people.) I'm not willing to do plastic surgery but I would do laser treatments. What I'm hoping to find is some cream or serum that will help. I have used Retin-A and that worked for a while.

Then there is the hair on top of my head. It is probably ten shades darker than I would like it to be. (OK, maybe ten is a bit of an exaggeration.) In my mind, my hair is the same color it was when I was younger. I think It's the same color as my son's. Until I look in the mirror and realize it's not.

Oh, well. I guess those are the trade-offs. I have this awesome life, great family but I look old. If that is the biggest of my problems then I am lucky. (That doesn't mean I'm giving up, though!)

1 comment:

  1. My goodness, you are in my head with this one. Everything you listed is an issue with me as well. I love my life and my family, but more and more often I look at the pictures from an event and think, "Good grief, who is that old woman with the splotchy face and blah hair??"

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