The Face that Time SHOULD Forget

The other day I looked in the mirror and screamed.

My reflection put me in mind of a line from Designing Women when Mary Jo - discussing "that time of the month" - made a comment about, "Personally, I have one day every month when I look like Broderick Crawford."

For some reason every time I get around my period, my face decides to do something weird. I never had this problem in the past. In the past, when I was a couple of days from my period, I would feel all bloated, eat everything in sight, maybe get a pimple here and there, but my face, for the most part, would remain something that I recognized.

The last few months, I've noticed that whenever I look in the mirror around two or three days before my period, my face has become this discolored, blotchy, dry, itchy thing that I just want to peel off and toss across the room.

What the hell?

To add insult to injury, I was recently at a concert for a used-to-be-favorite local band and everyone there was twenty years younger than me, and fresh-faced even without the makeup. Girls that age don't even have to be pretty and they're pretty. They have smooth, even skin, like butter. Sure, they wear makeup, but they don't need it. Sometimes the makeup actually makes them look older and less attractive. They have that dewy young skin that just glows no matter how many drinks they consume or how many burgers they chow down on.

I remember when I first started going to this guy's concerts. That was back before he was big. Now he's big and a huge prima donna on top of it, so he's just not that much fun anymore. When I used to go, I was fifteen years younger, had that dewy, fresh-faced, glowy look, and my makeup looked good on me. Now, when I go to this guy's concerts, I feel old, I'm kind of over him, the place is crawling with girls young enough to be his daughter (okay, that's an exaggeration), and it's so loud I can't hear anything when I leave the building.

You know you're not that twentysomething-year-old anymore when the couch, the German shepherd, a blanket, and Netflix sound like a much better option than getting your ears blasted out by some overrated country western star who still acts (and drinks) the same as he did fifteen years ago when you discovered him.

I have grown up. He has not. And I don't miss him.

Before the concert, I was to meet my girlfriends for dinner, and in the past the joke was always that I could be ready in twenty minutes while everyone else took hours to get ready. This time I was late getting to dinner because I had two makeup malfunctions, and by the time I attempted to fix the second one, I just said screw it. I was already five minutes late, not dressed, and still had to fix my eye shadow.

I used to be able to throw on some tinted moisturizer, some eyeliner and mascara, do a smoky eye, and apply some lip gloss, all in twenty minutes, and out the door I'd go feeling and looking fabulous.

This time the smoky eye made me look like a forty-year-old crack addict who attended one too many parties. I took it all off and started over with a lighter, more shimmery gold, look. The shimmer settled into the lines on my face, making me look like a sixty-year-old trying to pass as a thirty-year-old. The tinted moisturizer did nothing to even the blotchy, red complexion I'd been toting around the last few days, and I had a zit cropping out on my chin.

I gave up and went out anyway. It's not like I was looking for dudes or trying to hustle the prima donna of said band. I just wanted to stand in a corner and listen to the music, which was too loud for me to enjoy anyway, so I ended up pulling a Cinderella and going home before the coach turned back into a pumpkin.

I have officially hit middle age. I'm not even forty yet.

I don't get it. I rarely use makeup, I eat a healthy diet rich in greens and bone broth, I get plenty of sleep, and I drink plenty of water. I don't smoke, drink soda, consume too much sugar or gluten (or grains really), and while I don't exercise as much as I should, I do exercise. I also drink alcohol, but I'm not sucking it down night after night. I drink one or two drinks a night on the weekends, sometimes more, sometimes less. Lately I haven't been feeling it at all, so I haven't been drinking. I use all natural products on my face, smear it with coconut oil, use clay or charcoal masks once a week, and exfoliate.

So why the hell does my face look like this? At thirty-nine??

Maybe I'm not forty yet, but I will be in about two months, and while I'm not exactly dreading it, I am wondering, "How on Earth did this happen?"

I'm sure everyone feels that way as they rapidly approach forty. No one ever pictures themselves at forty. I thought thirty was hard. Actually thirty-four was hard. I guess I had always assumed I'd be living some fabulous life, married to someone fabulous, and maybe have a book or two published by now. Instead, I can't seem to get my writing together, I still work at the same library job where there is no opportunity to move up or forward (and it isn't like I haven't applied to other jobs), I live in a pretty dead-end town that people are fleeing from (at least a lot of my friends are), and I have a broken engagement to show for my troubles.

I am, after all, a complete and utter relationship failure. At least now I can say I have one broken engagement under my belt.

Yes, I'm a little bitter.

Maybe that's the problem. They always tell you (who the hell are "they," by the way? And why do "they" have so much to say all the time? Can't "they" just keep their yaps shut?) that age is just a number, and you are only as old as you feel. I don't think it's so much forty that bothers me as it is what forty means. As ridiculous as it sounds, forty feels to me like it means total failure.

Well, not total. I have managed to sock away enough money in savings that I am not panicking now that my dryer literally blew something out and quit working the other day. It was drying away and suddenly, I heard this very loud pop, like a gunshot, and the thing just quit. And wouldn't turn on again. And since it and the washer are the same age, and the washer is starting to make really loud squeaking noises, I might as well replace both of them.

God, remember when things like that were your parents' problem?

If I have anything to show for forty, I have learned to responsibly adult. I have learned to put money away for a rainy day so when this kind of shit happens I can deal with it without having a total panic attack.

Because that is what else forty means to me. Instead of growing up and becoming more comfortable in my skin, I have discovered a host of psychological problems and mental illnesses that seem to be getting worse as I get older, and not better. And they aren't even getting better with the copious amounts of treatment I fling myself into. On the one hand, I am adulting better than ever. On the other hand, I can't seem to get my shit together so I can actually leave the house without wanting to heavily medicate myself. I suffer from panic anxiety, atypical depression, social anxiety, codependency, and a general feeling of worthlessness and low self-esteem. Most days it's a struggle just to get through.

And my face isn't helping matters. At the very least, it could help me out a little by not insisting on looking like something the cat dragged in last night and then peed on.

See what I mean about that low self-esteem?

The reward for getting older is that you're supposed to feel wiser, or at least feel like you've learned something and aren't making the same damn mistakes over and over. I haven't quite learned that, and I guess I feel that by forty, I should have figured a few things out.

More than just, "Hey, that smoky eye really doesn't work for you anymore, face."

The smoky eye was hard to give up. I remember how much it hurt to give up my favorite glitter pencil that I used on my eyes in my twenties. "They" say women in their thirties shouldn't wear glitter, and "they" are sure right about that one.

Turns out "they" are also right about the smoky eye and women pushing forty.

I guess, if I'm going to steamroll right into my forties, then I should start looking for a new signature makeup look. At least then I can say I've learned a little something.

Baby steps.

I can no longer get away with all this eyeliner. Now, when I attempt it, I end up looking like someone punched me in both eyes.