I will turn sixty in April. Sometimes, I can't believe I'm that old. But all it takes is one look in the mirror and it's confirmed. I'm looking every bit of my 59+ years. And I'm looking more and more like my mother every day.
Years ago when I was appearing in Steel Magnolias, Al Herlinger was doing my makeup and working with shadowing in order to age my face for the stage. We were discussing all things appearance related, including weight. He said, "You know what you're going to have to do so you don't look like this in twenty years...." I replied that I certainly did know what I'd have to do, get a much better make-up artist!
Sigh. It's going to take much more than a make-up artist I'm afraid.
I have tried all the creams. Most of those manufacturers should be jailed for the promises their wrinkle creams claim to deliver. Nothing under my chin is capable of being tightened. Whenever I take a picture for my Facebook profile, I have to take twenty shots in order to get one I'm willing to post. Sometimes I get the face right, but then I look at my cleavage and have to reject the picture for I now have decolletage wrinkles. Yes, my cleavage looks like two loaves of unbaked bread squashed together in a single bread pan. I have to angle my camera so that my arm isn't squeezing my chest into wrinkly bread dough that pushes up to meet my jowls which are hanging down past my chin. Do you recall the Ally McBeal episode about the face bra? It doesn't seem so far-fetched to me any more. And oh, my wrinkles. On one side of my face, they are deep enough to look like crevices on an old mountain side. I am trying to lose weight, and that's a scary prospect for my face. Everybody knows that a woman wants to lose the weight in her stomach/hip area, but it is always the face that deflates first.
How many of you are old enough to remember the song You Light Up my Life? Back in the day, it was a very sappy song that I would drunkenly slow dance to during my wild nights at the bars. Now, it's my wake up call! It's Debbie Boone's theme song and the background music for the miracle Lifestyle facelift commercial. Have you seen the commercials? Women my age and older can have this one hour procedure and bingo! They're twenty years younger. One hour....that doesn't seem so bad. Especially to see those necks lifted, the wrinkles smoothed, the eyelids opened. Oh man. I want a lift. This coming from the woman who, when her young face was smooth and dewy, vowed she'd grow old graciously and never have work done. Well, she wants that Lifestyle lift. And she wants it now.
All around me things are happening to make my contemporaries happy to be sixty. One has children with special plans to honor her and celebrate her age, beauty, and wisdom. Another one has children planning a fabulous birthday bash. Turning sixty inspired a high school friend to plan a cruise that a group of us will take in August. Celebrations abound.
Ok. I'll celebrate. After all, being wrinkly and alive sure beats the alternative. But if one day I seem to look ten years younger, don't look too closely behind my ears. I hear they're making transparent duct tape these days. I'm thinking of calling it the MacGyver lift. Could be the next big thing.
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