is THIS "the new botox"
I went to my annual tanning appointment last week. Yes, you read that correctly. Usually, some time around my birthday, I hit up the tanning bed for my once a year, mid winter warm up. It is one of the most luxurious things I do for myself and it only takes 8 minutes, because apparently that’s all they’ll let you in there for when you only go once every 12 months.
I have olive skin that turns a weird puke grey in the winters. I also have raging eczema in the winter. On my face. Thank you winter months and genetics and probably too much caffeine and too much sugar and too little hydration. Whatever the cause, sun does wonders. And unfortunately, I live in a state where the sun stays hidden for most of the cold months. And so, once a year, I repeatedly adjust my limbs and facial angles to soak in as much “sun” as my glorious 8 minutes allow for.
This Thursday, in the same week, my hairdresser gave me low lights for the first time ever. They’re exactly what I asked for.
The women in my circle who see me daily will not notice anything has changed. I look exactly the same. I quite literally paid one hundred dollars to have someone make me look nearly identical to the way I walked in looking.
Only, I can notice a difference.
Covering up some of the grey hairs that surrounded my face rewound my clock 4 years. My hair dresser tells me the dye is semi-permanent. I asked her how long that typically lasts. She told me some women can get 12 weeks out it, depending on how often someone washes their hair.
Next time I will beg her to make the color permanent. But until then, it is now my new years resolution to join the “I don’t wash my hair” club. I have never worn a baseball cap in my life but it might be high time I buy one. Which might defeat the purpose of having less greys in my hair part in the first place…hmm.
What is it about aging that drives us to a mental state of insanity?
You wake up and spontaneously decide to yank that single coiling white hair, the one that sticks straight up in your part line, the one you’ve been trying to grow out for weeks to see if length would finally cause it to lie flat. Why ignore the weeks of progress now? Because today, of all normal days, is the day that it makes you feel 5 years older than you are ready to look.
You wake up and immediately inspect your face for deepening eleven lines after sleeping in a scowl, the same scowl you’ve slept in since you were 3 years old. If you didn’t slather beef tallow on your face before bedtime, you would use forehead tape. Apparently greasy animal fat makes it impossible for tape to stick, you’ve tried.
You click one too many times on the scammy website with shocking before and afters claiming Korean collagen masks are THE anti-aging solution every person in the history of personhood has neglected to ever know anything about, until now. And so you must buy yours IMMEDIATELY at the buy two, get two price that is only good for the next 4 minutes, 3 minutes and 59 seconds, 3 MINUTES AND 58 SECONDS… is all the time you have to research. Your speedy Google research leads you to a reddit post describing collagen molecules and their inability to absorb into skin pores and you thank God for smart people in your time of crisis. But that internet, it has a grab on you, and before you can jump ship, you are on a short minute long (because that’s all the time you have) rabbit hole where you find a dermatologist who says that, though collagen cannot absorb into the skin, these masks may actually be beneficial in many other ways. And now you are back to square one…1 minutes and 37 seconds, 1 minutes and 36 seconds…ADD TO CART.
Luckily, the screaming one year old waking up too early knocks some sense into you and you close out of all researched tabs shaking your head and thinking, maybe I’ll try face yoga. But probably, you’ll add these collagen masks to your cart 7 more times over the next 10 days.
First, I apologize in advance for any advertisements that may come your way from you simply being here, reading these words.
Second, WHY internet WHY?!
Do you really need to double down on your reminders of how much I am aging with every aging year of my life?!
And where is the wisdom I was promised?!
All I have learned is how little I have actually learned (about collagen on a molecular level specifically…but also about literally everything else).
All I know for certain is how little I know for certain.
One thing is for certain though, it is going to be another good and wild year full of learning many good and wild things.
(and full of a few more grey hairs and wrinkles—are we calling them wisdom lines now though?)
It was my birthday last week and usually with it being the new year and my birthday, I am here for all the reflection feels and for the resolution drive. But this year, I am just tired. Maybe that has something to do with aging too. Whatever the cause, I have three probably doable goals I’d like to accomplish this year —
Organize all our stinkin’ photos once and for all since 2019. I. Can. Do. This.
Get back to more creative photography for FUN, not for work.
Make more stuff.
Not to brag, but also to brag, I got a good start on #3. I sewed a shower curtain. I sew things now. I am a sewer now. Martha would be proud. As a matter of fact, just call me Martha.
Drink water, eat snacks ya all.
<3 Martha
Oh, I mean…
<3 Tash