I was completely unprepared for all the things that happened when my body decided to throw in the towel. Against my wishes. With no warning.
For those of you that haven’t experienced this yet, enjoy it. It’s going to happen all at once, and you’ll have no idea what has happened to the cute fun girl in the mirror. You’re going to wake up one morning and think that someone has replaced your mirror with a funhouse mirror. Let me enlighten you.
• Exercise is no longer a magic cure-all for your fitness woes. 5 years ago I took up running. Dropped 6 pounds in the first week, my belly shrunk several inches and I was a size 1. I stopped running and the weight stayed off. I adjusted my eating habits, NOT AT ALL. Now. I need to drop 15-20 pounds. I’m running every day. My 5:15 alarm is labeled “Get up and run your ass off.” I’ve given up soda and snacks and candy (mostly), I eat smaller portions. I lift weights. I drink enough water to take down two Titanics. I say mean things to my saddle bags and spare tire, hoping they’ll get offended and leave. It’s been 2 months. I’ve lost 5 pounds.
• I spend time browsing in the wrinkle cream aisle. A lot. I have every variety of wrinkle on my face that they have a name for. I’m not amused when people refer to them as laugh lines. Because I’m not laughing. Those things are deep enough to hold water. If they made spackle in a flesh tone, I’d fill in the crevices, sand it down and probably erase a whole decade. Instead I’ve gotten bangs and I use those to cover up my Sharpei-like forehead. I can now pass for my actual age and not an AARP member.
• I have crepe paper like skin on my neck. You may know this phenomenon as Turkey Neck. If I pull the skin tight underneath my hair at the back of my neck, it disappears. I’m working up my pain tolerance to having that pinched off with a clothespin all day. So far I’ve worked up to having it pinned for 20 minutes.
• I have one persistent, long wiry chin hair. It appears every two weeks or so. I never notice it beginning. It just springs, fully grown at a full inch, from my face. On days when I can’t find the tweezers.
• On the frequent occasions when I’m sucking it in, to fit into pants I shouldn’t, to avoid looking as though I’m expecting, when trying to fit in small places, I am likely to pull a muscle. Literally. Happened a few weekends ago whilst climbing around The City Museum with JT. It still hurts.
• My skin is always dry. Always. It soaks up lotion like the Sahara would soak up a monsoon. I apply lotion to my visible skin several times a day. If I didn’t, I fear I’d end up like crypt keeper and turn to dust when the sun touched my skin.
So if you haven’t hit this wall, yet, take heed. There will come a day when you wake up and nothing is the way you remember it. Things will be in different places, they won’t behave the same way. There is no need to be alarmed. You weren’t abducted and experimented on in your sleep. As my eye doctor explained to me when I complained about my eyes chronically being dry. “Well Nichole. Once you reach a certain age, women just start to naturally dry up.” (Totally true statement. Credit to Dr Botts.)
For those of you that haven’t experienced this yet, enjoy it. It’s going to happen all at once, and you’ll have no idea what has happened to the cute fun girl in the mirror. You’re going to wake up one morning and think that someone has replaced your mirror with a funhouse mirror. Let me enlighten you.
• Exercise is no longer a magic cure-all for your fitness woes. 5 years ago I took up running. Dropped 6 pounds in the first week, my belly shrunk several inches and I was a size 1. I stopped running and the weight stayed off. I adjusted my eating habits, NOT AT ALL. Now. I need to drop 15-20 pounds. I’m running every day. My 5:15 alarm is labeled “Get up and run your ass off.” I’ve given up soda and snacks and candy (mostly), I eat smaller portions. I lift weights. I drink enough water to take down two Titanics. I say mean things to my saddle bags and spare tire, hoping they’ll get offended and leave. It’s been 2 months. I’ve lost 5 pounds.
• I spend time browsing in the wrinkle cream aisle. A lot. I have every variety of wrinkle on my face that they have a name for. I’m not amused when people refer to them as laugh lines. Because I’m not laughing. Those things are deep enough to hold water. If they made spackle in a flesh tone, I’d fill in the crevices, sand it down and probably erase a whole decade. Instead I’ve gotten bangs and I use those to cover up my Sharpei-like forehead. I can now pass for my actual age and not an AARP member.
• I have crepe paper like skin on my neck. You may know this phenomenon as Turkey Neck. If I pull the skin tight underneath my hair at the back of my neck, it disappears. I’m working up my pain tolerance to having that pinched off with a clothespin all day. So far I’ve worked up to having it pinned for 20 minutes.
• I have one persistent, long wiry chin hair. It appears every two weeks or so. I never notice it beginning. It just springs, fully grown at a full inch, from my face. On days when I can’t find the tweezers.
• On the frequent occasions when I’m sucking it in, to fit into pants I shouldn’t, to avoid looking as though I’m expecting, when trying to fit in small places, I am likely to pull a muscle. Literally. Happened a few weekends ago whilst climbing around The City Museum with JT. It still hurts.
• My skin is always dry. Always. It soaks up lotion like the Sahara would soak up a monsoon. I apply lotion to my visible skin several times a day. If I didn’t, I fear I’d end up like crypt keeper and turn to dust when the sun touched my skin.
So if you haven’t hit this wall, yet, take heed. There will come a day when you wake up and nothing is the way you remember it. Things will be in different places, they won’t behave the same way. There is no need to be alarmed. You weren’t abducted and experimented on in your sleep. As my eye doctor explained to me when I complained about my eyes chronically being dry. “Well Nichole. Once you reach a certain age, women just start to naturally dry up.” (Totally true statement. Credit to Dr Botts.)
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