The Art of Losing Your Looks

You might be inclined to think of this post as a pity party, and if so, consider this your invitation. Pull up a chair and get yourself a drink from the punchbowl. It’s been spiked.

Apparently I’m supposed to be doing this ageing thing with some modicum of grace and a dash of dignity. Well, there’s another thing I’ve fucked up. Add it to the list. There should be a seminar or workshop with practical tools and advice on how to lose your looks properly. I don’t mean those crackpot self-help classes where they teach you to look at your vagina in a mirror and appreciate your grey pubic hair. Nor do I need someone to tell me I need to do some Louise L. Hay style daily affirmation. Each day when I look in the mirror, I get all the affirmation that I’m losing my looks that I need. Louise can keep her warm fuzzy feel good about yourself affirmations and stick them. I want a bootcamp style, fast paced, hands on course that gets me through this phase with a shred of self-respect left intact, and without gun play.

I realized the other day that I’ve become one of those women I’ve longed pitied. You know the ones you look at and think “I’ll never let myself go like that.” They are thick around the middle and their hair is decades past the Breck Girl phase. You look at them and think, we’ll I’d at least wax my lip if I were her. You wonder if she knows she’s started to go to seed, but you’re too polite to ask. Well, no need to ask here friends, I can tell you definitively that I’m well aware that this has started to happen. And I’m none too pleased about it either.

Like a lot of women, I’ve spent most of my life struggling with my weight. It’s one of those ongoing wars where you think each time you win a small victory, like losing 10 lbs, that you’ll never gain them back again. You swear to yourself up and down. Yet, 2 years later you’re back up and have added another 10 to boot. This time, though, it’s different. This time I’ve lost my cheekbones somewhere in the last 10lbs, and I can’t seem to find them. No amount of waving a magic blush brush around my face can carve out even the merest hint that they were once there. Without them, my face is like a big round circle highlighted by rosacea and the hair on my upper lip. I’ve offered Dave the option to wear a blindfold when he kisses me. I think he’s starting to consider taking me up on that offer.

I’ve written in the past about losing my eyebrows. They’re pretty much gone now. Maybe a dozen hairs in each one, but they are light, so you can’t really see them. I try to hide this behind a set of long bangs. It works pretty well most days, except now my hair is starting to fall out in the front, and I’m slowly starting to have to create my bangs a la Donald Trump, by pulling the hair from the back of my head forward. We’re close to the point where this is starting to look silly. I live in complete envy and disdain of people who more eyebrows than they know what to do with. A few weeks back Dave and I met for drinks with a childhood friend of mine who has been battling breast cancer. She was wearing a wig because she’d lost her hair to the chemotherapy and has had a double mastectomy, and there I sat at the table actually jealous, and maybe a little bit bitter, that she still had her eyebrows! Yeah, I can see by the look on your face you’re appalled at how screwed up my priorities are. See? This is why I need a workshop.

Now here’s the thing. I’m not looking for sympathy and a pat on the back while you say “there, there.” That kinda shit pisses me off. Same way it does when people say “Oh. You’re not fat.” when we both know better. Don’t tell me you don’t notice that I have no eyebrows. That just says you’re so horrified you can’t bear to look at me dead on for fear you’ll turn to stone. It’s all together possible and highly likely that I’m meta-morphing into a Gorgon. You should probably look away now.

Maybe what I’m looking for is a good set of books on tape that will teach me to speak Menopausal Hormone Havoc fluently in 21 days. I did get Rosetta Stone CDs for Spanish on Craig’s List, maybe I should check there. I wonder what category that would fall under? Oh. No. Wait. I swore off Craig’s List after the last time I got sidetracked in the Casual Encounters section. That’s a bad place, and you shouldn’t go there without a gallon size jug of Purell to clean yourself off with afterwards. Sorry, my bad for going down that path.

So, I’m pretty sure you’re asking yourself, “What’s your point Surly?” Don’t really have one. It’s my pity party and I’ll bemoan my life if I want to. Oh, and next time bring a hostess gift, will ya?