WAR AT FORTY/ Beauty Reals

A coming-of-middle-age story

At thirty-nine, I was the unsuspecting soldier in the Battle of the Bulge. Like so many before me, suddenly my jeans were busting open in unmentionable places, and my ass had somehow converged with another ass to create a plumper, less-appealing version of itself. Unwanted pounds showed up at my back door, and the damn things didn't even knock. 

I would whine to my husband, "I’m fat! My ass is huge!"

And he would flatly reply, "If you’re unhappy, work out."

His monotone responses infuriated me, but at least he cared. So I listened, begrudgingly, and soon those unwanted pounds fled like unwelcome house guests. Not to mention, the out-of-nowhere diagnosis of gluten and dairy allergy diminished the worry of ever having a huge ass again. 

By forty, I had trimmed my body, chopped off the ponytail I had worn since preschool, and embraced a new chapter. 

Then the page turned.

I woke to a pimply, pus-filled T-Zone. My once luminous complexion had joined forces with the sensitive skin of a thirteen-year-old. 

In Junior High, while many of my peers trekked across the bridge of breakouts, I took the less-traveled path: clear, glowing skin. But when my path looked dire, I ran to Michael Jackson, my dermatologist, in utter panic.

Jackson prescribed a boatload of ointments, a horrid oral medication, and worse, waiting. It was the antithesis of my usual routine: wash, moisturize and go. This new regimen horrified me, but I had no choice but to heed his advice.

While in product hell, my instinct led me to Doctor Bush, my gynecologist. I had to know whether my lady parts were rotting. I blame this on my growing reliance on fashion magazines, which seemed to underscore the harrowing effects of growing older. Worst of all, all the same magazines featured women my age styled in multi-printed house dresses adorned with chunky jewelry; one blind step away from Mrs. Roper’s infamous muumuus. Dressing any woman in an oversized housecoat is just wrong, and likely the brainchild of some twenty-year-old editor hell-bent on ending a mature woman's sartorial splendor while perpetuating their own misconceptions about what it means to age gracefully.

To my delight, I left Bush’s office with my lady parts in good standing, but with my complexion still declining. So I called Jackson's office for a follow-up visit. That appointment did not come quickly. Until then, I hid under a brown leather hat and dashed in and out of my daughters’ school in a blur, avoiding anyone in my path. I figured the faster I moved, the less chance anyone had to focus on my skin. Adding to the spectacle, I used flesh-colored band-aids to mask my eruptions and abandoned my favorite grocery store in Red Hook. I couldn't handle any up-close and personal confrontations with my butcher when my skin looked like raw dimpled meat. Am I being dramatic? Sure. But that's honestly how I felt.

At home, I flopped into dark corners and isolated myself from my entire family. My husband consoled me as I lamented my facial issues like a sullen teenager, and I grew more despondent with each passing day, leading up to my next dermatologist appointment with Michael Jackson.

***

Back at Michael Jackson’s, he diagnosed me with cystic acne. He told me that stress played a crucial role in its onset. But if the delayed threats of adolescence weren’t enough, Jackson punctuated my hell sayingIt’s natural to experience creature discomforts at forty.”

"I’m aware I’m forty!" is what I wanted to say. Instead, I sat slumped and defeated. 

Throughout the years, I'd heard that turning forty would be an uphill battle. Yet I didn't expect outright war. 

As an antidote to my bad skin and shallow depression, Jackson armed me with an arsenal of pimple-busting defenses. This new chapter would require willpower and plenty of it.

So I'm dealing. 

But as I await the next page, I imagine the headlight nipples from my 20s waiting there to replace the directionless nipples of my 40s, which after nursing three children, are at odds on whether to be optimists or pessimists.

Truth is: turning forty isn’t SO awful. I’ve ditched my leather cap and resumed a relationship with my Red Hook grocer. My cystic acne subsided, and I no longer had a need for so many band-aids. Things were looking up, but I wished the same were true for my nipples.