The other night while getting ready for bed, I yelled to my husband, “Look at this! What the fuck is this!? Oh my god, I have hair sprouting from my big toes!!!”
“It’s just hair.”
“BUT FROM MY TOES!?”
The older I get, the hairier I’m getting! Last week, while getting my eyebrows waxed, the nice, little woman asked, “You get lip done, too?”
“No, I think just the brows today.”
“You sure????????”
“Umm, yeah. Does it look like I’m growing a stache?”
“Hehehe, oh, no! It just dark.”
WTF. Dark? Well, ok, then, wax away! Who the fuck wants dark fuzz on their upper lip!?
At 34, these are the things I’m now starting to deal with that I never had to face before. “It’s all downhill from here,” I told Hubby. “Today my toes are growing hair…tomorrow I’ll be shopping for Depends!”
I sometimes hear from women, “I’m embracing my gray hair. I’m embracing the aging process.”
Ok, you ladies are right. I’m embracing it and accepting the fact that I’m getting older. I will stop coloring my hair and inspecting my face before bed and at night for any new lines around my eyes…
Just kidding! Fuck you, Old Age! I’m approaching you, kicking and screaming! You positive people might call them “laugh lines” and proof that I’m always smiling–I call them deep gorges that appear whenever I squint or smile. (I really need to start perfecting “Resting Bitch Face”). Laugh lines? Who the hell is laughing at wrinkles!?
I swear, one morning recently, I woke up and discovered a handful of gray hairs, fine lines around my eyes and mouth, and a tiny sun spot on my left cheek. The next day, I was calling a chiropractor to make an appointment for lower back pain (shout-out to my two girls for destroying my back after lugging them each around for nine months!). The day after that, I had to call my eye doctor due to my eyeballs deciding to start drying out like the Mohave Desert.
Back in the day, I only went to the family doctor if I had the flu which knocked me out of commission for multiple days. I’d see whoever at the practice and would never remember what month or year I was there last. Now, I’m on a first name basis with our doctor and saying things like this to my husband: “It’s been a few years since I had a complete physical. I’d like to get my cholesterol checked.”
The 18-year-old me is cringing at this me discussing damn lipid panels!
I am very healthy, I exercise, and I eat well, but I can see Old Age creeping in like a damn stalker with her bag of wrinkles and sore joints, no matter what I do to keep her away. She laughs at my tube of Olay night cream as I rigorously rub it into my face, lying to myself that I see it working.
It’s not that I’m vain or overly obsessed with my looks. I don’t spend a fortune on my hair, clothes, or nails. I like to look nice when I go out (other than story time at the library, where I totally rock the yoga pants, sweatshirt, and ponytail), but I’m pretty low maintenance. I’m not looking for the fountain of youth or spending a ton on surgery to make my face look like an overly Botoxed statue (sorry, looking at you, Joan Rivers-RIP). I’m just looking to slow the process down.
I don’t need to completely eliminate my wrinkles and laugh lines (the toe hair can definitely go, however), but it would be nice if they could just show up very, very slowly.
Oh, and those of you who have also embraced this new fad with sporting the gray hair—no, thanks. I’m clutching onto my box of hair color and not letting go!