Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The heckity heck of being middle aged

I am 46 years old, due to turn 47 in July. Any time I have taken those inventories that tell you to what age you will survive, I come out around 82-84 years old. I am in the middle of my life, just slightly past it in fact, by that measurement. As a woman that means things are, well, CHANGING.

My skin. What the heck, skin? So far I am not breaking out like I am 14 again, but recently I found out I have Rosacea. For which there is apparently no cure, but you can treat it with an antibiotic cream. While it comes with the fun side effect of having super rosy cheeks without any help, it also means my face feels like it is ON FIRE from the inside. If I exercise, it is a quadrillion times worse. I feel I could melt all the snow in my yard just by walking outside. And the skin can get a bumpiness to it along with the redness. YAY. I lay there at 5:30am thinking I should get my butt on the treadmill, but really don't want to have Hot Face as I am calling it, for the next 5 hours. Can we find MORE ways to dissuade me from exercising, PLEASE?

Also, skin, what is with the super shine? On top of being hot and rosy, and getting a bit wrinkly and puffy and saggy where there never used to be wrinkles, puff or sag, I am always shiny. I have switched foundations recently to see if that helps. So I am trying to moisturize appropriately, to deal with the wrinkles and sag, but also don't want to walk around reflecting all light in the room with my shininess, while glowing from the heat in my cheeks. I might rent myself out as a light house.

This is on top of the fact that about every 4-5 weeks I have to change my deodorant. Because the one I was using stops being effective. AKA, I smell funny. I have three different deodorants in my cupboard now, that I rotate. On really desperate days, I even resort to using The Bob's. Hi Bob!

So let's review: Red, hot, glowing, shiny, wrinkly, sagging face, randomly smelly pits. I have not even begun to discuss the hairs growing where hairs have no business growing. It isn't bad enough that I have extra pounds on me that my no longer functioning metabolism refuses to deal with, and my skin is on strike and I cannot rely on my deodorant to keep me from offending, I have to take a plucking inventory every morning to make sure that overnight I didn't become a Baba Yaga look alike.

This getting older stuff is not for the faint of heart. At least I don't have much of a chance to wallow in self pity, as I have a child who right now doesn't know his mother is falling apart at the seams. As far as he is concerned, there is no better sparring partner to perfect his super hero moves with than his mom. Speaking of which, I need to go take some ibuprofen.

5 comments:

Audubon Ron said...

You're still a pup. I'm the one ready for the junk yard.

Oz said...

It sounds a lot like puberty, and pregnancy. Guess we get to keep on revisiting the same sweaty, shiny, bumpy faced stuff again and again.

karen said...

I'll be 47 in April. Are you sure we're not related? I swear I've started growing a beard with all the chin whiskers popping out all over the place.

Why is it no one tells you this stuff when you're young? They just like the look of shock as you slowly make all these discoveries?

Some times I just want to dunk my whole body in a vat of nair and call it a day.

Wenderina said...

I feel you sista.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

47 on the 28th of this month. I feel ya'!

Have you tried mineral powder foundation--I am a convert. I use GLO. My friend, who has Rosacea, is the one that turned me onto it.