Tag Archives: youth

Mill-xers

Posted on by
Reply

I was still reeling from my discovery that fresh-faced young boys and girls were indebted to Allergan Pharmaceutical Co. (i.e. Botox makers).  Well, writhing and frothing at the mouth is a truer description of my sentiments.  Were twentysomethings really taking hours off from work to create these facades?  Didn’t they have low-man-of-the-totem-pole jobs to prove themselves at?  Happy hour free chips and salsa to overindulge in?  Cleaning duties to haggle with roommates about?

I wiped off my foamy mouth, and soothed myself with a jar of premium cocktail nuts, honoring the many years I couldn’t afford them.

And there was my beef.  My twenties are filled with memories of things I couldn’t do, or had to do in an awkward, sweaty, tear-stained way.  Like moving to Manhattan, and rotating through friends’ cramped apartments while searching for my own place.  My best friend and I shared a towel for fear of putting our hosts out.   Angry real estate agents bore down on us daily, and we resorted to taking antacids.  We bought two bagels each morning, one of them with cream cheese; we then took the cream cheese overflow and spread it on the other bagel, saving ourselves a total of thirty cents.

And when we broke our hosts’ futon, we were prepared to give up the bagels themselves to cover the repair.  We cried silently into germy pay phones, assuring our parents that all was well and their stern warnings about moving to New York were for naught.  Martyrdom and Generation X go well together.

I bit forcefully into a macadamia.  I was never like today’s kids.  My lunchtime in those days was usually four p.m., when the meeting leftovers would roll out of my office conference room.  I took the bus to IKEA, not mom’s minivan to CB2.  I would have gladly traded in my scratchy Chinatown market t-shirt for a $99 cashmere cotton blend with a “Tofu is cool” message.

I used to walk to Bloomingdale’s to save money.  Drats.  Busted.  At Bloomingdale’s. Often.  Beauty department.  Saks too.  Clinique lipstick section.  Some Clarins spa visits.  Appearance mattered, in order to get chosen from the line by the bouncer for entry into Friday night’s club of choice.  So I could then hand over my weekly food budget as a cover charge.  And buy a five-dollar bottle of water.  And then take a taxi home, crosstown AND uptown.  To do it all again the next night.

No, I was never like these kids.  Except when I was.

Fountainhead of Youth

Posted on by
1

The other day, I was sitting at a bar and chatting with a friend, when the subject turned to cosmetic procedures. I realized I had had a similar conversation with another friend a few weeks before. And another with a third friend a couple of months before that. The common theme in the discussions? Cosmetic enhancements: everyone does them. And despite this repetitive conclusion, I sat shell-shocked on my bar stool.

I’m not entirely sure why, since my current YouTube obsession is an anti-cellulite massage video (please reference the “Step by Step” post). My Friday night guilty pleasure consists of smearing Vaseline all over my face (right after using it on the wood furniture). I also just fulfilled a dream of shopping for snail essence masks at the Seoul airport. I get our obsession with physical appearance.

Yet, I was dumbstruck by the fact that regular people, walking my streets, drinking Trader Joe’s wine and buying Gap turtlenecks were elevating the beauty game to a whole new level. We’re not talking about reality stars or ex-heads of state.   We are talking about the chick with the baseball cap and fleece vest, halfway through her pint of Miller Lite, at the corner Irish dive bar.

And then there’s that: a quest for youth isn’t reserved for those over sixty, or even thirty.   It’s now actually for the youth. Ah, what bright eyes she has, you wax nostalgically over a young lass walking by. Go ahead and sing your praises, but direct them to the professional aesthetician that skillfully glues custom-sized fake lashes onto tiny human eyelashes. Repeat monthly.

Debating Botox and wondering about that whole “losing your expressiveness” chatter? Don’t – for all your friends, strangers, and children’s babysitters have already injected themselves. No one else is cogitating about it, and yes, you can still tell when they are mad at you.

Since my adolescence, I have occasionally felt guilty about my frivolous interest in clear skin, and shiny hair that smelled like roses. But now I suddenly feel like an out-of-date Victorian forced into modern times. I can often relate to the Victorians, but that’s an entirely different subject.

Should I have pumped collagen into my jaw line at nineteen, instead of buying one ugly pair of Doc Martens after another? Why oh why did I ever frown at the blackboard during the mystery that was Microeconomics? I should have feigned comprehension, and then immediately asked a pre-med student to transplant ankle fat onto my forehead. And peptides – why am I still not sure what they are, when all the ten year-olds on my block are massaging them into their necks?

I know rationally it’s not a race to keep up; but if it were, the reality is that I am barely at the starting point. I will never meet the requirements for ultimate cosmetic maintenance. It might be because my recent conversation with a Buddhist monk excited me as much as finding French brands at the Walgreens’ beauty counter. It could also be because I believe dog slobber is a highly effective antioxidant.  Clinical results to come.

Maturing Youth – Epilogue

Posted on by
1

Well, at our age, we often say,

As we start one more activity in the busy day.

Be it grocery shopping, or cell phone talking,

Or hatha yoga or charity auction hawking.

We start to think of our furrowed brows,

And our new daily mantra: peace right now;

Of our blossoming love for herbal tea,

Or beach trips that are just about watching the sea.

It’s suddenly clear, just how much we have shifted,

Towards the finish line of the lives we were gifted.

Snowflakes, crackling fire, fat book, old dog.

Today, this is what I call living high on the hog.

And when nostalgia suddenly seems to appear,

For velvet ropes, thumping bass, permanent high gear,

I rise and sprint in my orthopedic mules

To the nearby pantry, which has all the right tools.

A beloved blue teacup, bought when money was dear.

Add sugar, cocoa, flour, and maybe a single tear.

For we have reached the time when youth can’t be faked,

But oh bliss, oh joy, we can always have mug cake.

 

Maturing Youth

Posted on by
Reply

I was recently face down on a rolling bed, fingering the thin fabric of my hospital gown, and getting a scan of my insides.   The headphones sent waves of Taylor Swift, with a few muffled interruptions by the technician telling me to hold my breath.  But I could only focus on the sting from the doctor’s words that morning: at your age.

Hrrumph.  Really?  Had it finally come to that?  Apparently, I had been skating along gracefully all these years until I slid into the cement wall face first that morning.

There were many moments along the way that had, sadly, strengthened my little illusion.  There was the afternoon I spent at Sephora agonizing over whether I had fine lines, wrinkles, sagging, dehydration, or age spots.  Which was my worst enemy?  And was I correcting or preventing?  Or rediscovering my youthful strength?  Should I smear diamond flecks or gold particles on?  Could I afford either?  Overwhelmed by anxiety, I took one last look at the mirror, and decided my most pressing problem was the teenage-quality pimple on my chin.  I left to find some Clearasil.

And there was the ophthalmologist who forgot to write my power levels on my prescription.  Even though I was never able to get contact lenses as a result, I have a soft spot for him.  For in the dead of winter pallor and holiday party nutrition, he looked deep into my eyes and asked if I was a student.  Yes, my eyes had the health of a twenty year-old.  I suppose I should have asked if he meant graduate student, but I took the leap of faith in my favor.

And of course, my mother-in-law was part of the psychosis.  Every invitation to join her and her friends out in the suburbs on a Saturday night ended with a plea for attendance by the “youngsters.”  She meant me.  And my group of middle-aged friends.  So naturally I raced out the door in my sparkly shoes and Hello Kitty bag, only too happy to comply.

In my mind, the day of reckoning would arrive when I turned about seventy-two, and would have to stop going to Power Zen Spinning Boot Camp Fusion.  Unfortunately, my physician brought that dream to a halt a few decades sooner than expected.

So it seems I have no choice but to embrace reality, and embark on the journey as a mature adult.  Except I suddenly remember a business meeting a few weeks ago.  I had just expressed my surprise at the easy transition to the time zone of our meeting location.  One of the men turned to me and said, “Well, at your age.”