Point Well Taken

N and I were getting ready for church this morning. Sunday mornings have a laid back schedule at our house. Sometimes we'll linger over breakfast or surf the internet together before we get dressed. At this point in the motherhood game, however, any schedule that affords lipstick and mascara applications before I'm in the car feels luxuriously laid back.

This morning I put on my dress and donned a pair of shoes with a modest heel, walked out of my bedroom and saw N in the hallway. I rarely wear dresses and N often comments on how lovely I look whenever I put forth the slightest effort toward my appearance. My vanity inspired a sort of slight pause in the hallway. Nothing tacky or gratuitously obvious I just thought I'd linger there, you know, in case I needed to humbly receive praise.

Instead N clucked her tongue, scowled at my shoes and, in all seriousness, said "Don't blame me if you twist your ankle in those things!"

...and a bag of chips

Last March I splurged on a jar of super-duper-face-cleanser. Yes, I had just turned thirty-five. Yes, I was sensitive about my age. And I had one of those moments standing at my bathroom mirror where I gasped at my wrinkled skin, my blotted complexion. I found retail therapy as near as my local Walgreen's cosmetics counter. I was amazed at the options of age defying this and anti-wrinkle that.

Anyway this super-duper-face-cleanser was rather expensive. I rationed it, proportionally, into super-duper small applications. Used my cheek to wipe the jar clean a couple of times. Then proceeded to use the tap water rinsate complete with loosened crusted globs along the edges. No bones about it: last week there was no more super-duper to eeek out. My wrinkles persevered and the cleanser was ka-put.

Yesterday I went to the same retail therapy spot. I gazed at the cosmetic counter and the accompanying anti-wrinkle pricetags. Ouch. I vaguely remembered last March's sticker shock, but, the edges of the memory had grown dim. Somebody told me that happens when you grow older, your memory fails, but I can't remember who said so...

Since the economy is imploding in an icky, stinky mess we all are watching our spending these days. I couldn't justify the cosmetic cost of anti-wrinkle-super-duper cleanser just to stroke my fragile, and aging, ego.

I opted for Noxema. Yes, Noxema, its cheap. You know, it still comes in that big, blue tub. It still pricks at the skin, a little, with its medication. The smell conjures memories of cleansing teenaged, pimple-y pores.

Under that white masque I remind myself that I wouldn't want to stay young forever. I have no longing for my sixteen year old self. The one who would agonize about everything...wonder why nobody liked me...traversed a mental minefield of adolescent self loathing. I like being thirty-five much more than I ever enjoyed sixteen and seventeen. At thirty-five I laugh more, punish less, and love to greater depths than I did twenty years ago. With that white masque covering my face, I reminded myself that thirty-five isn't bad...in fact its pretty good. Then I washed off the Noxema, caught a glimpse of my wrinkly, blotted visage and amended my thoughts. Slightly.

If that thirty-five year old self-love could throw in flawless skin to boot -- just tie a big bow around it, a bag of Doritos and I'd be set for life. Seriously. Given the depth and breadth of cosmetics that promise fabulous skin I genuinely feel I'm on the road there... all I need now is the bow and the Doritos.
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Currently Reading: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri