Dec
9
I feel deep in the thick of holiday near-overload these days, somewhere between being swept up with Christmas spirit and glad for enjoyable-to-me things like gift wrapping and pine-scented candles and those powered-sugar peppermints, and humming with a low-grade anxiety about estimated shipping dates and the upcoming Visa bill and wondering, as I do every year, if it’s weird that I have no idea what it’s like to be faced with the fashion dilemma of what to wear during “holiday dinner party season.” (Honestly I can’t remember the last time I went to a fancy dinner party at all, much less closet-mused my way through a SEASON of them.)
Also, I notice that this year things really seem different in terms of being a parent during the holidays. The kids have grown so much recently, particularly Riley, and one by one, once-beloved traditions have crumbled away into Thanos dust. Pumpkin farms: no thanks. Tree-lighting ceremonies: eh. Fake snow and hot chocolate at the local mall: c’mon, Mom, that’s for babies.
We still have plenty of family rituals and things we all enjoy, but … it’s not like it used to be. It’s not quite accurate to say I am surprised by this, it’s just that you can know a thing is coming and still be thrown off kilter by it. When you’re in the midst of the magic and mayhem of the little-kid years, you understand on some level it won’t last forever, but the reality sneaks up on you. It’s hard to realize that some moments are now forever lost to the world of memories — the last time trick-or-treating, the last time enduring Christmas jammies, the last time believing with a full heart in Santa Claus.
“It goes so fast!” is such an unhelpful thing to be told when you’re, say, publicly battling with a salmon-thrashing toddler while he clocks you, repeatedly, with a well-aimed sippy cup, but god, it does go so fast, it goes ever faster with every year that goes by, and time is both a gift and a thief. It does not leave you where it found you, for good and for bad.
I am trying to remember this, to be glad for what was and to appreciate what is here now, because it won’t be exactly the same next year, or the year after that. Plus, I still have boys who are counting the days until the 25th and who exclaim with delight when their favorite ornaments come out and at least one kid who will watch the semi-creepy Burl Ives Rudolph special with me even though that “Why am I such a misfit?” earworm song is the actual worst.
Still, there is a sense of loss that seeps through, among the twinkle lights and stockings. My time of Christmas with littles is over, and now I have to hope I am lucky enough to experience it again, years down the road, if my children have families of their own.
Nov
23
Recently I decided I was tired of diving down skincare rabbitholes (that’s a creepily provocative visual, now that I’ve written it out: so confining and dark, yet so … moist, and richly scented) in some endless unsatisfying and expensive search for which exact unguents and potions I should be using and in what order I should desperately trowel them across my face each day. I mean I don’t know if you have noticed but skincare has gotten BONKERS in the last few years: I can’t even understand half of what’s on the market but I’m constantly driven to try it out. Like sure I guess I DO need a 47-step regimen that includes snail mucus and something that’s mysteriously referred to as “essence” and don’t forget the mist which is I think just throwing some fragranced water on your face but it costs a whole lot?
And the MASKING. Why everyone seems to love sheet masks so much is kind of beyond me, I guess I have noticed that my skin feels briefly improved after I’ve endured the sensory horror of having a cold drippy slimy wet thing plastered across me like an Alien facehugger for half an episode of The Americans but dude, not worth it. The magazine articles that talk about sheet masking during plane rides are particularly baffling to me. I truly can’t imagine too many things that sound more upsetting than that, except 1) your seatmate vomiting a partially digested packet of Biscoff in your lap, or 2) the plane careening into the side of a mountain and the passengers being forced into cannibalism while waiting for rescue.
So I made an appointment with an aesthetician, which is one of those words I always have to just start typing incorrectly before spellcheck figures out what in god’s name I’m trying to say and saying it out loud is even worse than tackling “anaesthesiologist.”
(I can’t accurately tell you the difference between an aesthetician and a dermatologist, so don’t even ask, but I guess I think of a dermatologist as someone you go to when you have a rash or a weird mole or you need medical care for your skin while an aesthetician is someone you see when you want to look better?)
The lady I saw was super nice and very helpful and even had me treated during that consult appointment for a cluster of broken capillaries on the bridge of my nose. She took me to a room with a giant Dr. Evil-looking laser (“laser”) machine and with what seemed like one zap (it felt a bit like being snapped with a rubber band) it was done and it cost THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS. I had a tiny bit of bruising but after several days that spot — which I have been blanketing with concealer for years — was gone. GONE. I have no idea what kind of specific treatment that was but if you have a similar issue I highly recommend marching into your nearby medical spa place and telling them you read about a $35 capillaries-B-GON laser on the Internet and you want one too.
Anyway, she also recommend a prescription retinol (anti-aging) and something called hydroquinone (for lightening dark spots), which she said could basically replace all the serums and whatnot, and so I was like SOLD. She did warn me the retinol would likely make my face sensitive for a while (“It can take up to three months,” she said airily) and I basically waved a hand and thought privately that only wusses whine about how a lotion made their face get upset, and what America needs in these trying times is to TOUGHEN THE HELL UP.
Of course three days into using retinol my face felt like it was on fire, then it started flaking, then it launched into what the Internet calls “retinol purging” which is sort of like that dumb horror movie in that a bunch of zits come out of fucking nowhere and try to kill you, and I confess that I was officially triggered. “Sensitive”? More like “the smoking hot ruins of a burning hellscape,” thank you very much. Someone get me an awareness ribbon!
It’s been a few weeks now and my face has mostly calmed down, so hopefully that whole three months thing is for less sturdy individuals (rude flex but ok) and I think I am even noticing some improvements? A slightly better texture, maybe?
Whether or not these things actually make any kind of real difference long term I am glad to be down to a much more manageable routine: cleanse (I double cleanse with a balm and then a mild cleanser), moisturize (currently using CeraVe), then my retinol/hydroquinone (which are both from the brand Obagi, which sounds a lot like Okapi, so what these potions lack in fun packaging and froufrou smells they make up for with a nightly mental image of that weirdass animal that looks like a giraffe, zebra, and donkey went into the Fly telepod and came out the other side like BITCH CHECK OUT MY OSSICONES). I have mostly retired my mishmash collection of random goos although I still sometimes use a toner not because I believe it actually does a single damn thing but because I have some perma-memory of using Sea Breeze astringent a thousand years and being convinced it would change my life somehow and that has mutated over time to a Pavlovian toner application.
I am forever marveling at how strange aging can be and in the department of vanity it is particularly thorny. On the one hand, I do feel like I am less hard on myself than I used to be, and that I can appreciate how beauty means so much more than the ridiculous standards that are foisted upon us in our culture. On the other hand, I don’t love every single change and I never will. I guess I don’t see my skincare pursuits as being about trying to look younger, but rather doing what I can to feel my best in the age I am.
Ultimately, I think skincare is about hope, and as long as you aren’t going broke or making yourself crazy (see also: clammy, supple rabbitholes lined with benjamins), hope is never a bad thing to have.
-
My product review site:
[