Dec
21
Have you seen the new Star Wars? No spoilers, I just want to talk about Rey’s skin in that movie. There are so many closeups of her lovely face, and I swear to god she does not have a single pore. Her skin is like a smooth dewy expanse of fresh-from-the-fridge butter. One of those expensive extra delicious butters with a weird IKEA-sounding name. Meanwhile every time we zoom in on Kylo Ren the very best you could say is that his face has a lot going on.
This is what I keep thinking when I peer in my light-up makeup mirror lately: wow, there’s definitely . . . a lot going on. Wrinkles, sure, but also all sorts of spots and moles and broken blood vessels and an ever-deepening Angry Canyon between my eyebrows. I don’t even bother with foundation any more, it feels like trying to spackle over a particularly enthusiastic wallpaper design.
It’s a bit of a bitch, this mid-forties business. I keep being startled by random things, like the fact that Disintegration, which I have always snootily thought of as The Cure’s crappy “new” album, came out in 1989. Or the way the young bagging clerk asks if I need help out to the car and, like, I can tell that he means it? And get this: I am older than Selena Gomez’s actual mother, which, look, I have no idea how I know that but it is DISTURBING. The kids recently asked me which president was in office when I was born and I had to think about it for a while and finally realized it was Nixon. Nixon! Or how about how if I sit cross-legged on the couch for a movie I need like four days to recover from the knee trauma? When did that start happening?
Also: perimenopause, which the text editing program I’m using to type this does not recognize as a real word. OH, IT’S REAL ALL RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER.
Anyway. What can a person do but deal with all the aging that comes their way, right? Better than the alternative. It’s just — dude, there’s a lot going on.
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When I turned 46, I had a midlife crisis. Something about being closer to 50 than 40? Who knows. I spent way too much on makeup I’ll never wear, tried eyelash extensions (*eyeroll at myself*), and even got Botox. Nine months later I’m mostly over it, resettled back into my own skin. Getting old sucks, but it has the side benefit of giving fewer fucks about crap that used to keep me up at night, and that’s definitely in the Plus column.
Dude! At 51, I feel ya! Who the hell is the old lady looking at me from the backside of my mirror? Also…the aches!
Aging sucks was.
D.
Sucks ASS…damn autocorrect
I dropped by only to say: FUCKING PERIMENOPAUSE.
Oh my god I can so relate to this. Thanks for making me laugh. But please not too hard, my pelvic floor isn’t as strong as it used to be.
Getting old sucks but you’re right, it beats the alternative. Feel lucky, nobody ever asks if I need help to the car.
And when menopause finally, finally graces your doorstep? Your skin instantly gets crepey and turns into your mother’s. Thin old lady arm skin, spotty old lady chest skin, weird crepey skin all around your eyes, the beginnings of jowls. JOWLS! And the dreaded turkey neck. It was like overnight. No more fucking period after 39 years should be cause for a party, not another reason for a crisis.
Ugh, perimenopause. Which IS a word, stupid spell check. Nothing like being completely comfortably sitting still and then starting to feel that heat creep up your body, your neck, and your face, which instantly breaks out in so much sweat that it looks like you just ran a 5K.
I so feel you on this! How is it possible that I still have pimples along with the wrinkly face. UGH! Falling apart at 43.
I feel so seen right now. Forty-five is hard. I keep thinking of bleaching my hair platinum. I KNOW it won’t be a good look, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it
Totally agree about Rey. I thought that the entire movie. Like, how?! Whatever product she’s using, I need it. And the knee trauma… lol! Same, sister. If I sit like that long enough to watch a movie, forget it. I can’t walk right for at least 10 minutes.
48 here. And I’ve recently befriended someone at work who delights in things like the year I got married he was in kindergarten, etc.
Also, I went most of my life with everyone being shocked when I told my age because “you don’t look it!” …yeah, that doesn’t happen anymore.
Perimenopause! I have been getting my period every three weeks since I turned 39 six months ago.
So much. So much. My lady time was 11 days delayed (no possibilities of babies) and now she seems to have moved in permanently. Go. Away. Now. I am gonna be 45 and have no more use for you. 34 years is plenty. Shoo.
I thought the exact same thing through the whole movie! She was so perfect, he was much much too close! And I not only am feeling and looking my age but have a toddler, to boot! That accelerates aging in your 40’s like crazy! For Christmas let’s all just give ourselves kindness and ditch the magnifying mirrors!!
Same stuff going on here! Thanks for writing this, because as always, makes me feel better to know I’m not the only person thinking these thoughts. It’s almost like I’m constantly surprised I’m aging–I don’t FEEL old, but there’s no denying all these signs. Makes me reevaluate how I look at elderly people-do they feel the same way inside as me? And here’s a fun discovery- I found a gray hair growing on my chin! Gray! Is that better or worse than finding a black hair? Ack!
I agree with ditching magnifying mirrors! And I would but my eyesight is so bad I can’t see to put on my make-up otherwise! Ha! I too have been going about feeling very sorry for my old ass in comparison with all of the young dewy little things I see. I do try to remind myself that I’m a much smarter, grounded, practical, focused woman than the fluffy little DIPSHIT I was in my twenties… hell my thirties too. Also, seeing a post like this and hearing you guys comment the same things i’m feeling and knowing it’s not just ME helps! A LOT!
Mid forties, huh? Sorry to tell you, it only gets worse!!
I was so OVER peri menopause — all those BS things happening + I’m still getting my period? I was pissed! Getting into the actual menopause was a relief — even if I’m walking around the northeast in winter in a tank top.
Five am I’m out on the back porch in Jan eating a fudgesicle in the dark. That’s how menopause was for me.
I “threw out my back” a week ago…. opening a cupboard. Not a particularly high cupboard, or a low cupboard. Just a regular cupboard that I open about 20 times a day. When people ask how it happened, I put on a very dramatic whispery tone and tell them and everyone who used to think I was young and spry, now knows the truth. I am old af.
I turned 49 last month and my right knee likes to let me know on a daily basis. The Fucking Perimenopause hasn’t hit…YET. I’m still freaking out over how my oldest will be 19 next month.
Retin A at night and vitamin C serum in the morning. Once weekly AHA toner. Working pretty good over here – I mean it’s not Botox but it’s working. Email me if you want specifics.
But, seriously. Daisy Ridley is 25.
I love you. (Seriously just planning to make an appointment with a… facialist? Esthetician? Skincare advisor? Dermatologist? this morning while putting the “tinted moisturizer” on.)
agh, about all the 25th anniversary of this Nirvana album and that Liz Phair album and this and that movie, etc. CHRIST ON A CRACKER, it feels like YESTERDAY.
It threw me for a loop that I was having trouble reading my computer screen. I’m 41. I got some reading glasses and upped the font on my computer. Also, perimenopause. Geez. I wasn’t expecting either of those just yet.