Potions,lotions, youthful notions.....so much unnecessary emotion and commotion!!!

I was sitting in front of my dresser yesterday, trying to,well, get dressed but was doing quite a poor job of it! I was looking like something from a bad horror movie with smudged eyeliner, blue, neon shimmery lids,over done blusher and too much of red lipstick. The reason for all this distraction and bad make up, was well a new line which seemed to have cropped up overnight in my under eye area. This was in spite and despite a very sought after and pricey eye serum which i had faithfully applied every night for the past bloody two years! Groan!! Sigh!! Weep!! Another wrinkle, another line!!! 

Couldn't they ( as in all those brainy scientists etc) just invent a magic eraser to wipe these god damned lines away!!! One swipe and the line is gone and you are restored to your youthful, crinkle free,wrinkle free, happy, smiling ,confident self!! 'They seem to be inventing every other nonsensical thing under the Sun but not this stupid, magical eraser,' i muttered to myself in utter disgust and dismay. Alas! Who can escape the ravages of time!

That got me thinking-why should i want to escape the ravages of time and why couldn't i just accept the natural process of aging gracefully?? I mean we all were going through it-i wasn't alone in my misery so why make such a huge deal of it?? I swear, without exaggeration, i have at least ten different  creams of differing descriptions ( some day,some night,some primers, some for going out doors,some for staying indoors) and seven different serums lying on my dresser at any given time. In addition to that, there are body butters,cleansers, make up removers,aromatic body and face oils, scrubs,masks,toning,hydrating and firming lotions,sun screens with varying u.v protection factors etc and what have you. Gosh! I feel tired just thinking of everything.Why all this clutter and all this mess and of course the bloody expense?!!

And expensive all this stuff is!!! There was a time, when travelling abroad, in the duty free section, i used to spend all my time at the cosmetic and fragrance counter. Sigh! Those days are gone! Now i spend all my time and my darling hubby's hard earned money  on  exotic anti wrinkle creams, skin caviar ( what in hell is that??), lotions and serums!! I buy them as if there is no tomorrow and horde them as if they are going out of production!!

 And when the cashier tallies up my bill, i almost faint with fright,dismay and shock because it all amounts to a small fortune!! 'There goes my shopping budget for the entire trip,' i mutter with resignation and sadness. But what to do? It seems i have become addicted to this stuff and time and time again, despite the various quarrels and showdowns with hubby dearest, the pattern is repeated!!

But now i have made a firm resolution to break free! Enough is enough! I am forty and i just have to learn and accept and embrace my looks for what they are.  No more melt downs,no more agonizing and unnecessary emotion and certainly no more wasteful expenditure on these so called miracle wonders in their alluring,gleaming pots and fancy bottles. I have trashed the men folk enough about their mid life crises and what have you but in the spirit of absolute fairness and honesty have to take a close,hard look at myself too...a woman in her forties!!!

 That seems only fair and logical. We women (with exceptions of course) too, in our forties,seem to be going through our meltdowns and crises and are quite losing it...our sense of sanity,equilibrium and sense of balance. We are yo-yoing between feeling really fantastic at one end because we feel liberated (from taking care of the kids,home, hubby,trying to please everybody etc)  and feeling really down in the dumps because that ever alluring,elusive sense of youth, infallibility and invincibility seems to be slipping away!!

 We all want to look younger,prettier,thinner, more crease free than the other. That's a fact...i accept it now. Going for a party is usually a nightmare even if one has a closet full of clothes. I can never find anything which is sexy enough, or has the right fit and cut, or makes my figure looks flattering enough. There's always a issue and always some commotion...at least in my life. The constant pressure to look good is almost suffocating, debilitating and claustrophobic.

 'Am i looking fat?', 'Are my love handles showing?', 'Is the cellulite on my arms visible?',' Is my double chin prominent?', 'Can you see my laugh lines?'. These are the troubling questions which are posed regularly to my long suffering husband who still doesn't know as to what the right answer is! If he replies in the affirmative, he's dead and the rest of the evening is spent in surly silence and if he replies in the negative then he's labelled a liar and a diplomat and a hypocrite!! So there's just no winning with me...i take his trip either way!!

So, i have finally decided that to maintain my sanity,peace of mind and calm at home...i am going to abandon all the so called youthful notions that i have held on to so fiercely for the past decade or so. I am going to accept my face and body for what it is and not what i hope it to be. At forty, you can never look or feel like you did when you were in your twenties !! It's just not possible.

 Yes, we should nourish our bodies and take care of it as best as we can. We should try and eat right (most of the times), should exercise 3-4 times a week, should minimise other vices which are not so good for the skin,health etc but we should also live ,eat and enjoy ourselves without reservation  and with full abandon. After all it's our one life and a short one at that! 

So let's stop feeling guilty and miserable for every mouthful of food that we  ingest and let's meet every new wrinkle and line on our face, head on.Let's not agonise over every grey hair that we sprout-there are any number of very effective hair colours available that can disguise that pesky grey fellow or fellows, if you wish to! So worry not!! Let not the ravages of time defeat us. In fact revel in your age and wisdom and acceptance of you,yourself as YOU ARE!!!

So i will now stop apologising and making excuses. I will accept that my face and body will succumb to gravity and there's not a darn that i can do about it. I will accept that i will be a few or many pounds heavier. I will accept that the lines on my face are here to stay and tell their own story and i will stop feeling ashamed of them.  I am going to accept that after bearing two kids and the consecutive C-section surgeries my tummy will never be as flat as before ,how ever much i starve myself. In fact starving myself just seems to compounds my problems more!! 

In short, i am going to stop being such a hormonal,high maintenance, overly demanding and overly expecting, utterly self obsessed mad hatter!! I am going to live and let live! I will stop judging, criticizing, over-analyzing ME and everyone else around me!!!

 I am going to enjoy my imperfections and revel in them..in fact isn't it said by poets and writers that true beauty lies in originality, uniqueness and imperfections and not in absolute perfection and symmetry. That could be so boring and insipid!!! So here's to a new,fuller,accepting, more wrinkled,creased and definitely a more happier ME!!! Cheers to that!!