Gosh I am wrinkled. They are everywhere. Like mosquito bites. It’s incredible where you find them. Technically, my “wrinkle” on my back isn’t really a wrinkle but it sounds nicer than “back fat” so I am counting it.
It’s the hands and face that are the worst. And my neck. OK, I should add in my chest too. There are many parts that are beginning to look like fruit leather. I think my triceps are ok but only because they keep flapping in the wind and I can’t get a good look at them.
Some people are aging beautifully. Not me. Yesterday I was asked if I was “retired”. No, just currently unemployed. It’s kind of the same thing but without an income. But I digress. I have a friend who is rocking the house as she gets older. She is tall, graceful and when she walks in a room, she holds an audience with her spectacular sense of style. It also doesn’t hurt that she is smart, funny, kind and can make a mean martini. She also has flawless skin that makes most women envious.
One day I was talking to her and I kept wondering what was different. She always looks great but this day, it was beyond radiant. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I asked her what her secret was. She told me that she had been doing “facial fitness”. Yes, it’s a “thing”.
I had to look this up because she looked AWESOME! What was this miracle of miracles? It turns out that facial fitness is like going to the gym with a personal trainer except you get to lie down, not sweat and you come out looking amazing. The treatment series involves microcurrents that stimulate facial muscles so that they regain their tone. Your skin gets plumped up (in a good way) and fine lines and wrinkles are diminished. Eyes open up, upper cheeks fill out with a slimmer and more structured jaw line. Now that’s a WOW!
In particular, it was my friend’s eyes that looked amazing! Wide open. Her experience was that the sessions had helped her face “lift”. Think about pulling your forehead up and back over your skull. The face literally “lifts”. I know this because I tried it and realized that my eyes had developed a bit of a “hood”. More than a “bit”. At this rate, I am likely going to be blind.
Gravity is a tough gig. My face is not just “falling”, it is avalanching. Everything is falling from the top down. It explains why my breasts have fallen into my stomach.
In a small town, we don’t have facial fitness facilities. I told my husband we should look at moving to the city for facial fitness options. He said he could hang me up in a tree like a deer and see if that would work. He also said he wouldn’t charge me. I don’t find him helpful.
Without access to facial fitness, I had to come up with my own home remedies. Betty White said that “the secret to aging better is getting 8 hours of sleep; 9 if you are ugly”. I need at least 12.
How am I going to age gracefully without being hung up in a tree? I’m trying to learn that lesson. I’m trying to transition. This is a metaphor for many things right now. I am trying to accept external changes and find ways to wear them so that they look good and not awkward.
Lately, with COVID19, I feel that many things in my life have been falling; not just my forehead but my career, my bank account and my dreams of where I thought I would “be” at this stage of my wrinkles. COVID 19 is definitely deepening my “WTF” lines.
This week, I have to write a new business plan and possibly a resume. The only thing worse than writing a resume is trying on bathing suits and we covered that topic in a previous blog. More courage is required. I have to stand up and admit that things are falling. It’s not comfortable. It’s like jeans that are too tight or my forehead falling over my eyes.
I talk about letting things go but it’s hard. Harder than I thought. I am dropping a business that operated for 25 years and enhanced my life in many ways. It helped get my husband through school, contributed to raising three kids and allowed me to flex my life so that I could serve my community and be a voice. And now it’s going to be different and I have no idea what that might look like.
Glennon Doyle is a beautiful author who has become a travelling companion for me. She wrote “what screws us up most in life is the picture we had in our head of what it was supposed to be“. True that.
So this week, I will write a new business plan, a resume and a rough draft for my next chapter. Right now my wrinkles are from worry. I am wondering what would happen if I could move worry aside to make room for more creativity? Surely these next steps can be mastered with a positive mindset of “what if” as opposed to “don’t fuck up“.
This blog is about bravery and trying new things. Not in the scope of “world peace” but rather in the ordinary realm of being just “normal”. Think job loss, heart ache, injustice, indignity and messiness not to mention a whole lot of “fuck am I pissed off”.
My goal for the week is to breathe into my “moreness” and keep a lid on the feeling of being “less than“. Again, my traveling companion Glennon, has good advice. “We can do hard things”. My hard might not be your hard and your hard might not be my hard, but regardless, it all involves that first scary step and that’s why we need each other. We need to reach out and help one another to rise up.
Courage cannot be measured. It’s a verb, not a noun and intensely personal not to mention it requires tons of bravery.
Here’s to having the courage to do hard things. Here’s to wrinkles that show a life that was lived with largeness and then some….
With love,
Shelley
And Then I Jumped...... 