Morning decision determines my looks
Here’s my morning dilemma: Do I spend the seven extra minutes sleeping, eating breakfast, loading the dishwasher or making myself more presentable?
A funny meme on social media addresses this quandary. It shows ET in the movie scene where he’s disguised as an old woman with a sloppy wig, goofy hat and baggy dress. The text says:
I planned to get up extra early to make myself look pretty. This is what happened instead.
I am fully aware that, in this culture, women of a certain age tend to become invisible when out in the world. Plenty of women can be heard celebrating this stage at which the normal cultural esthetics no longer apply. I hope to soon reach that liberating level of self-awareness and confidence, but I’m not there yet.
Seven minutes of grooming gets me, starting at the top and working my way down, better eyebrows, one coat of mascara, under-eye concealer, two swaths of blush, some pink lipstick and that anti-crepe cream on my neck. If I skip that last step, which to be honest is not fooling anyone, I will go back up and put on eyeliner. By 10 a.m., most of it will have melted off.
A better and longer-lasting face would take twice as long, but who has time for that? I marvel at my daughter and her friends, all under age 20, who are able to make their faces Vogue-cover-ready in the time it takes me to brush my teeth. They learn by watching some of the thousands of tutorials on YouTube. I’ve tuned in to a few that are aimed at “women over fifty,” but alas, the “women over fifty” who are teaching me, even before makeup, look like they aren’t over 35, much less over 50. They are showing me how to cover wrinkles on a face that has none.
Which is to say that luck plays a big part on how faces look come my age and older. I don’t wrinkle, but I sag. And where’s the YouTube tutorial on that?
The real experts, though, say that beauty sleep is the fountain of youth. Women who’ve gone into hiding for a face lift can be heard to say, upon re-entry, that they had a nice, long rest. Some days the best we can hope for is to look well rested. That’s what I tell myself when I hit the snooze button a few extra times every morning, an action that injects another decision into the mix. Sleep or beauty? Maybe it’s both.
By the time I’m at the last seven minutes before I have to be out the door, looking at my pale face and then at the sink full of dishes, I have to choose. This morning, the farmer called out from the kitchen, asking if I wanted breakfast.
A “yes” meant a toasty bagel sandwich with egg and sausage. There was also half a mango on the plate. I wolfed it down in seven minutes.
I’m sitting in my office now with fuzzy hair, weak eyebrows, bags under my eyes and a neck that’s nothing to write home about. I’m surrounded by much younger women who, even with no makeup, are beautiful.
Later I’ll return home to a sink full of dishes and the other half of the mango, which I’ll eat quietly as I promise myself to get up a little earlier tomorrow, so I can be pretty. We’ll see how that goes.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.