Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Sugar and spice and everything nice... up to a point

No one ever told me -

when I was a little girl experimenting with red lipstick and blue eyeshadow,

or when I was a teenager experimenting with purple hair dye and a crimping iron,

or when I was club-going-age experimenting with body glitter and fishnet stockings

that after a certain age (oh, let's say... thirty-five?) being a girl is less about the fun stuff and more about maintenance.

It's no longer about which flavor of lip gloss can withstand a night of drinking Zimas and dancing to the Spin Doctors* & ** or finding the perfect shade of light blue nailpolish. It's about which eye cream promises the most amazing results, or finding the best shade of concealer.

Dyeing my hair is no longer about finding the brightest shade of burgundy, it's about covering up enough gray hairs to score me a cameo in a Golden Girl's remake.

It's no longer about being sparkly and cute, it's about hopefully looking like I've slept for at least an hour or two in the preceding month.

No one tells little girls "enjoy every day you've got before you are introduced to the instruments of torture known as tweezers and eyelash curlers" or "Run around without a bra for as long as you can before you have to worry about your boobs hitting your knees" or "enjoy these halcyon days of youth before most of your free time is spent grooming yourself".

Admittedly, I'm still kind of fighting the whole grown-up thing - if I spend more than four minutes primping myself I feel prissy, I'm still pretty comfortable leaving the house without makeup and botox still sounds like a terrible idea - but I'm guessing that someday, not far down the road, all of that stuff is work itself into my life. And the thought of that kind of sucks. I feel like there are three camps on aging -

1) the natural way - I grow my frizzy gray hair down to my butt, dress all in natural fibers, move to Albuquerque, change The Kid's name to Wingspan and raise chile peppers and ceramic coyotes....

Or 

2) the soccer mom give-up - I get highwaisted, pleated-front mom jeans and a christmas sweater, rock the mom short haircut and bump the stereo in my pearly white mini-van.

or

3) the completely unnatural mom - she of the velour sweatsuits with words across the butt, fake boobs and faker nails, driving a huge SUV and dreaming about those boys from Twilight.


I don't fit in to ANY of those groups. Not even close. Not fitting made me kind of cool in high school, but now... I don't know, I kind of feel like I should apply for a job at Hot Topic and start writing emo poetry.

And don't even get me started about how guys get off completely scot free with the whole aging thing - gray hair on guys? Can be pretty hot. Those smile lines around a guy's eyes? Can be completely sexy. Compound that with how they don't have to shave their legs, wear pinchy high heels or suffer the indignation of control-top anything - and it's just a big old party platter full of so-not-fair.



* shut up
** Kokomo's in Irvine, anyone?

Labels: and I'm not even on Ambien, just kidding I totally am