I Look Just Like I Did Ten Years Ago, Only On Steroids

I went to physical therapy the other day and found myself in front of a three way mirror, diligently doing my rotator cuff exercises. I would blame the rotator cuff tendinitis on getting old, but there were a bunch of high school and college aged kids in there with me with the same injury. I will leave alone the fact that they are varsity athletes and I am a vintage athlete.

Anyway, there I was with nothing to look at but me, pretty much everywhere I turned and I couldn't help but notice that I looked like a puffed up version of my original self. Now, back when I was my original self (read before I turned forty), I always thought I would take this aging thing quite gracefully. Now that I am actually a victim of it, I must say it is rather disgraceful.

Like most things, it is easy to say and harder to do. So what of it? As Nora Ephron suggests, one can simply try to avoid mirrors, but that is a little hard to do (especially when one injures herself and ends up in front of a three way mirror...). As much as I don't like being Puff Mommy, I wouldn't become a botox pin cushion or worse. So, there is nothing to do to except accept that this is the new me. Puffy and proud. Well okay, not proud, but strong, healthy (except for the rotator cuff, which is coming along) and pretty much too busy to care too carefully what I look like...most of the time.

Zit Happens

Watching Thing 1 enter the wonderful world of puberty, I would have thought that I would have to have dug back in my mind to remember what it was like to deal with acne.

Turns out, I don't have to dig back at all. Guess who gets to experience acne twice? Moi. Sure, there are worse things that I could be experiencing and part of the reason that I continue to battle this acne thing is that I am suspect of some of the heavy duty meds they prescribed for me. I was given three things, one, a benzoil peroxide medicated wash that I was told would bleach my towels, a topical treatment called Clyndamicin, and Retin-A, which I was informed, would make my skin photosensitive, read: stay out of the sun (ha! as if we had any this summer...).

I dutifully went along with this regimen for maybe 4-5 weeks. Maybe my skin was getting better, probably it was.. However, right around that time, I became more and more uncomfortable about putting all of these things on my skin, including my chest, where of course the acne has decided to flourish. As you may know, my older sister battled breast cancer last year. So, I am not too comfortable with the use of unnecessary chemicals in general, but particularly topically applied to my chest.

In the end, I decided to stop using all but the Clyndamicin. The medicated wash was not only annoying, but I noticed it contained parabens. Parabens have been shown to be estrogen mimickers, or technically, endocrine disruptors. My sister's breast cancer was disruptive enough, thank you. I chucked the Retin-A too, for similar reasons. I am suspicious of the chemicals, and when I used it, due to the photosentive thing, I started getting darker spots on my face, despite the pronounced lack of sunshine this summer as opposed to most summers.

So, here I am alone with my acne. I am okay with it. At least the zits come and go and I know they won't leave lasting consequences or toxic buildup in my body. Zit happens, and if that is the worst of it, I'll be fine.

Twentieth Reunion

I know it is hard to imagine from my youthful looking picture, taken a mere two and a half years ago, but I am going to my twentieth college reunion this weekend. In some ways, I can't imagine that 20 years have transpired since my college years. In others, though, that seems like a lifetime ago.

If someone asked me then what I would be doing twenty years from now, I am not sure how I would have replied. If someone asked me how I would feel twenty years from now, I probably would have said something very clever like, "accomplished."

How do I really feel? Mostly great. I am healthy, happily married and have two great kids (at least when they aren't screaming at each other) and one great dog (except when she digs). What of aging? Well, if you told me that I would wander from one room to another in my home and wonder aloud "now why did I come in here?," you would have been met with a laugh and a question of "twenty years from now? I will only be 42!" I guess the laugh is on me.

If you asked me if I would be bothered by wrinkles, age spots, aches, pains and a sluggish metabolism, I would have said no (again thinking these would not yet set in except for maybe the wrinkles). The reality is, I don't like the wrinkles, and the parenthesis that have come to bookend my mouth, the tightness in my left hip, etc.

But age has also brought me wisdom. I am lucky to still be here, healthy and happy twenty years later. Wrinkles and minor aches are the tolls for the journey I have taken. I have seen others not so lucky, including a handful of classmates who are no longer with us. So, I say bring on the wrinkles, it beats the alternative and gives me something to whine about as well.

Face Cream is the Salve for The Economy (and Me)

Hank Paulson and his team of experts can't seem to get it right. No matter what they have been trying, the markets just seem to go down further and further and the words "lay offs" are becoming more and more frequently spoken. So what's next?

Well, I deferred to those experts for a while and like every other consumer, in America judging by the declining sales, made the words "purchase" and "shopping" a dirty word, whether on-line or in person. My only purchase recently other than groceries and things like toilet paper? Face cream. Okay, $52 face cream to be exact. It is from France and with the cost of fuel and translation, well, it could be more expensive.

I decided to go ahead and buy the luxury face cream because well, someone has to save the economy and what the experts have been doing hasn't had any effect yet. Moreover, all of this economic stress is really bringing on the aging process big time. So, of course I am going to need something to counteract that. The fact that it has this yummy and soothing rosemary aroma is an added bonus that soothes my frazzled nerves everytime my husband comes home and tells me his company's stock has hit a new low and that the layoffs have begun. Don't worry, I am using it sparingly, it seems like we are in for the longhaul here.

Puff Mommy

Early to bed, early to rise. An old expression, and now I know why. Lately, I have been waking up and my face, with the humid New England weather, summer allergies and the fact that I sleep with my face in my pillow, can best be described as a puff ball.

I look as if I have gone three rounds in the boxing ring and am definitely not fit for human consumption. So, what to do? My solution is to wake up an hour earlier than I normally would if I need to go out in public (fortunately we family members don't really look at each other very carefully in the morning, and just go about our catatonic morning rituals). This gives my face time to shrink back to size, and hopefully all of the overnight wrinkles fade away (away, away instant old lady!).

The exception to the rule? Going off to the gym for my 6:00 am class once a week. Frankly, at that hour, the public has to accept me as is. Fortunately, the ladies in my gym class also just roll out of bed and stagger in. One of the gals who used to go to my gym even proudly boasted that she slept in her gym clothes to save a few minutes in the am. My kind of girl!

You might be wondering what I do during the new found time in the a.m. while I wait for my face to return to its normal size and shape. Why, blog of course. Or read the paper, check email, or whatever keeps me productive and upright. I do feel a bit like Chicken Lttle, except my line is not "the sky is falling," but rather, "my face is falling." As long as it stops at my neck, I am okay with it.

I'm Not Grumpy, It's Just Gravity

I am thinking of getting a t-shirt with that slogan on it. This way, if I am not smiling all of the time, people will understand that what looks like a frown is really just gravity at work. Or maybe I could put the slogan on a button so I could wear it on different outfits, because the t-shirt might require too much in the laundry department, and then I would have a real reason to frown.

Let me know what you think of my slogan and if you prefer the t-shirt, button, or maybe a hat.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Ever since about 39 years of age, my hair has been coming out in greater numbers every day it seems. I know I shouldn’t preoccupy myself with it for many reasons. The most important being that my older sister is about to lose ALL her hair temporarily, thanks to the ravages of chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.

Though I must admit it does still bother me and sometimes, when brushing or washing my hair, it seems as though there is so much hair in my hands that I fear looking in the mirror. My deepest fear is that I will look into the mirror one day and see only 6 or 7 hairs left on my head.

I know the chances of this actually happening are very low, but still, I do continue to be alarmed by the accelerated hair loss. I have visions (or nightmares) of Kojak staring back out at me from my mirror. I also worry that my mother’s prediction that we children would end up “bald, fat, and toothless” might indeed come true (I thought I only had to contend with the battle of the bulge since I go to the dentist regularly).

As I mentioned, my sister’s impending hair loss puts my paranoia in perspective. At any moment, her hair is due to fall out, and not just on her head. As much as I hate having to get my eyebrows “done” every four weeks, at least I have eyebrow to get “done.” And even though I shudder at the thought of the pre-vacation or summer bikini wax, I definitely want it “all” if it has to be “all or nothing.” I don’t think we realize how much our own self-image is tied up with our hair until we are faced with losing it.

For her part, my sister says she is not too worried about the hair loss and is planning on just putting on a hat or a scarf and not going the wig route. She has had her hair cut shorter in anticipation of the big fall out. On the bright side, she is happy not to have to shave her legs. This is the one obvious benefit from chemotherapy during the summer season.
So, I am going to appreciate my hair, all of it. That includes the stuff that keeps falling on the ground and making my bathroom look like the floor of a hair salon after a cursory sweep. After all, at least I have hair to pick up after.

Upside Down You Turn Me

Now that I am over forty, I have to say that I am bothered by the southern migration of my face. Seems as though someone implanted a magnet into my chest and the skin around my mouth in particular was eager to get to the magnet first. I don’t believe in plastic surgery (aren’t we tortured enough already, to say nothing of the risk). Nor would I be eager to inject anything like Botox which is a combination of the terms “botulinum” and “toxic.” in my book.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the stuff in Botox: “Botulinum toxin is a neurotoxin protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. It is one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances in the world, and it is the most toxic protein. Even worse than what I had mistakenly thought the “Bo” stood for. I thought it stood for bovine.

I figured why would I want cow particles in me? I am already trying my best not to be confused with a cow from the outside. With my luck they would find out that botox actually ends up paralyzing your face “as is” then I would look like I had Sad Cow disease since my parentheses (you know those deep grooves between the nose and mouth, I think the technical term is “nasal labia”) always make me look as though I have just read something sad or that I am an understudy for Grumpy.

Anyway, short of the knives and the needles, I decided to take matters in my own hands. I figured if gravity was making my face drop down like a heavy bag of groceries, the antidote would be to either stand on my head or lie down with my head hanging over the bed.

I am proud to say I can still stand on my head and for a long time too. I noticed lately though that it hurts my head, where it never did when I was a kid. Probably because whatever layer of protective fat was on the top of my head is now firmly lodged on my thighs, also thanks to gravity. So, instead I tried the lying backwards over the bed bit.

Everything was going fine and I was imagining that my face would look plump, flush and parentheses-free when I came back up until I noticed in the mirror that with my head hung over like that, a giant vein in my forehead bulged out hideously. I immediately pulled myself up and ignored the head rush. I’d be damned if I was going to look like some sort of troll with a throbbing vein in my forehead, even if it did mean I wouldn’t have parentheses. So, I am back to square one. Maybe I will try putting masking tape those parentheses at night…Stay tuned.