Day 59: The Eye of the Beholder

Heaven help me. I've gotten my first wrinkles. Those "fine lines" you hear about so often in commercials. I don't know how I didn't notice them before, but I looked in the rear view mirror today--in full daylight--and thought, "Ee gads!" (I really did think that exact phrase.) Fine lines. Little smile wrinkles at the corners of my eyes. I raised my eyebrows, and a little crease showed up in the middle of my forehead. I never used to be able to do that.

Having just dropped my 2 year old off for a play date, and with the smallish child asleep in her car seat, I made a beeline for the nearest Rite Aid. (I had intended to go to Goodwill, but I highly doubt that I'm going to find anything there that will make me look *less* wrinkly and old.) Entering the fine establishment, I discovered that it was my lucky day: Wet n' Wild cosmetics were on sale. 99 cents each. Like a teenager, I began flinging emerald green mascara (to bring out the green), green eyeshadow (to bring out the hazel), and copper liquid eyeliner (to bring out the brown) into my basket. (I figured if I brought out the green, hazel, AND the brown--my eyes would be a dazzling rainbow of glorious depths and subtleties. No???) I got some pink lip plumper. (Do my lips need plumping? Better safe than sorry.) Then I headed straight for the next aisle over: the hair dye aisle.

I should tell you, right now, that my hair has been just about every shade you can purchase. My first dye job was "Castings: Sunset" when I was, maybe, 15. From that day on, I was hooked. I've been very blond, strawberry-blond, maroonish, brown, even pink once. (That was an accident, though. Really.) No matter what the color, I love it. I love how it makes me look and feel different. I love how, if you look through my scrapbooks, you can never tell from one page to the next what color hair I'm going to have. But, it's been awhile. My hair is it's own, natural mousy-brown right now. I think it's the first time that's happened since... um... ever.

As I stood considering which sultry eyed model I wanted to look like (if only the hair dye gave you the cheek bones and the eye color, too), I found myself feeling conflicted and a bit shallow. I have always been determined to "age gracefully." To accept each step I took in the "upward and onward" direction. To not utterly freak out at the sight of crow's feet. But here I was! Grabbing boxes of color with abandon, determined to be "pretty" and "recapture that glow."

Please.

If I truly wanted to recapture that glow, it was going to take more than Wet n' Wild and some L'Oreal, I'll tell you that much right now. So. I put the "Born Blond" back on the shelf, resisted the siren call of Hydrience "Warm Honey", and strode down the aisle and past the $27.00 Oil of Olay DermaPod Anti-Aging Triple Response System. I know that I can't buy youth. I am old enough to know that beauty is only skin deep. But I'm also smart enough to know that 99 cent Wet n' Wild to play up the green/hazel/brown is a great deal, thank you very much, and I'd better use it before I lose it.