WHO WOULD I BE FOOLING?

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For many years, whenever what I saw developing in the bathroom mirror displeased me I would think: “Oh well, I can always make all that disappear with plastic surgery.”

Somehow that didn’t happen.  I hate pain, even if temporary. I also hate the pain of writing any check containing the word “thousand” after a single or double digit number, a pain that isn’t so temporary. The sum of money indicated on the check vanishes from your possession forever and then you can never again think about spending it, if you really wanted to, for something you normally would never spend money on.

In my early sixties, when I was once more between husbands, I did consult a plastic surgeon in Boston about something unrelated to my face.  (The consultation was free.)  He seemed not only a well-trained fellow with unusually attractive patients in his waiting room, but also turned out to be sensible and realistic. He was easily able to persuade me of what I had suspected all along:  what I had sought counsel about was neither feasible or necessary.  However, he was so nice I was sorry to part with him.  “So isn’t there anything you could do for me?” I asked.

He regarded me thoughtfully for a moment and suggested perhaps a partial “procedure” to restore my youth from nostril to neck. (That’s not exactly how he put it.)  But he wasn’t trying to sell me anything. After a moment he also added:  “It isn’t necessary either, you know.  A man who really loves you won’t care about the firmness of your chin.”  I did wonder how he kept his waiting room filled if he shared that wisdom with other prospective patients.

Fast forward to my eightieth year, when a brownish three-dimensional  “thing” began to sprout from my upper left cheek.  Wrinkles and sag I had learned to live with. But not this intruder (extruder?), if I could help it.  Again I sought professional help. This time she was a woman here in Princeton, accredited up the wazoo, who assured me she could remove the “thing” and at the same time smooth out the surface of my skin with a “deep peel” as well.  This appeared to be a package deal. It was summer and I was both lazy and innocent in the ways of dermatologists and plastic surgeons.  I said okay.  But then, since it was another of those free consultations, I asked how much a one-time, first and last, face lift might cost. I know, I know: nobody asks such questions without harboring a secret yearning to look young again.

Her face lit up.  (Now for the profitable stuff. ) She whisked me over to a seat in front of a mirrored wall and stood behind the chair. Then she lifted upwards with both her knowing gentle hands. Voila!  The face of my thirties greeted me.  In my real thirties, I had kept finding fault with this face.  Let me tell you, it looked pretty good to me now.

“O, what cheekbones!” she rhapsodized.  (Really?)

I left not only with an appointment scheduled for “thing” removal and a deep peel, but also with pricing for facial surgery alone, facial surgery plus eye lift, cost of hospital stay, cost of anesthetist for four hours general anesthesia, the memory of the face in the mirror and  — pain be damned! — a trembling desire,  as the copywriter in me would put it, “to roll back the years.”

Bill, the man who eventually loved me despite my unfirm chin, sat up with a start at the news and remembered his years in medical school sixty years before.  “Four hours under general anesthesia for elective surgery?  At your age? Absolutely not!”

My internist agreed.  At eighty? Not wise.

Several acquaintances whose opinion I sought had heard there was a slight risk of loss of mental acuity.  Meaning I might lose some smarts.  (Some of what’s left, that is. There’s plenty gone already.)

I lost faith in the doctor over the next few months anyway. She did get the “thing” off. But let me tell you a deep peel h-u-r-t-s, no matter how expensive it is. (She never mentioned that, or that I would have to spend the summer smeared in Eucerin — greasy! — under widely brimmed hats.) I never went back for a yearly re-do, as recommended if you wish to retain your supposedly fresh and dewy look.

So if the subject of facelifts had come up after that in any dialogue, real or virtual, you would have found me almost entirely on the side of being oneself.  In moderation, of course.  What I don’t spend on Manolos or Louboutins (because I’d fall on my face if I tried to walk in them) goes to my hairdresser, who owns his own eponymous shop and therefore costs more. (Although no tip because he’s the owner.) There —  pain-free and hence without general anesthetic — I get Keratin straightening twice a year, and coloring my roots every eight weeks, and partial “highlighting” every sixteen weeks, and the obligatory double cheek-kissing at the end of every visit.  (He’s Moroccan, French-speaking and Paris-trained.)  I also have a bathroom full of Bobbi Brown products, which somewhat mask the absence of continued dewy facial freshness, and I smell (if I may use the word) of Hermes. (On Perfume.com it seems it’s nearly always 15% off.)  Which fragrances? Caleche for day, 24 Faubourg for evening and specials. (Don’t ask what the specials are; I know one when I see it coming.)

But deep down, have I still yearned to look young(er)?  Um, yes. It would be great to look the way one sometimes feels.  Then sappy young waiters wouldn’t dare be patronizing, and maybe medical assistants who never saw me before would stop with the kindly, reassuring first-name business,  and  — here we’re really getting to the nitty gritty — I could still flirt with strangers, which used to be one of the major fun parts of everyday life.

Don’t be too concerned, though. The yearning has always stayed deep down.  Until a few weeks ago, when it may finally have gone away for good!  I recently took a commuter bus instead of the train to New York (just to see what it was like) and went to the rear, hoping if it didn’t fill it might be quiet enough back there to read.  It did fill, though, and three ladies who got on north of New Brunswick sat down in the row in front of mine. The two directly in front of me were likely in their early sixties. I could give you a wicked description of their haircuts and what they had on (I can be truly evil when the spirit so moves), but will leave them in peace because they had smile lines around their mouths and little crinkles around their eyes and the kind of chin lines the men who love them — and I’d be willing to bet they each have such a man — don’t care about.

But the third lady, sitting one row in front of me and across the aisle, immediately attracted my attention for the dewy white unblemished freshness of her complexion.  She couldn’t have been young — she came with the other two and her straight hair was that of an aging woman, the sort of hair a hairdresser can only cut short and then color a desperate shade of straw, to try to conceal its wispy thinness. Despite the hair, however, her skin had not a single line at all,  anywhere, and it couldn’t have been just Botox.

Moreover, her blue eyes were open very wide throughout the entire seventy-five minute ride, as if she had just seen something that startled her and her eyelids had frozen high in the eye sockets. There was no indentation at all between her nostrils and mouth; that part of her face had been stretched so wide it was absolutely flat. The stretching had thinned her lips into a long straight line, as if if she were perhaps about to smile but had thought better of it.  No smile lines framing the mouth, though.  But what was most startling was her chin and jaw — both sharp and clean and raised up as if she couldn’t lower them. And perhaps she couldn’t.  I took my gloves off and pulled my own face and throat back with thumbs and fingers as tightly as I could and then, without letting go, tried to lower my chin.  I couldn’t.

Was it a terribly botched job?  A third or fourth or fifth facelift? Somehow I think it was repeated, and intentional.  Perhaps the unbelievably babylike texture of her skin made her feel young. This lady was at least in her seventies. She wore a black Persian lamb coat, and who wears those anymore? Her hands were bony and had some brown spots; there was a slight osteoporotic hump beneath the back of her Chanel-copy jacket; she took a sucking candy out of her handbag and sucked it in the front of her mouth with closed (stretched) lips, the way old ladies often do.  (Except her chin stayed jaunty as she sucked.)  Occasionally she made a comment to her friends across the aisle; she had what my eight-year-old grandson would, with the blunt outspokenness of childhood, call an “old lady” voice.

So who did she think she was fooling? Who would I be fooling if I had insisted on tinkering with the passage of time? I don’t have the hump, or the coat, or the sucking candies, but my hands are a dead giveaway and when I have phlegm my voice cracks.  With her jaunty chin and startled eyes, she slowly made her way down the aisle of the bus in front of me, her feet set wide apart to keep her balance, her pocket book full of those candies dangling from her Persian lamb-covered arm. The driver gave her a hand off the bus. Despite the dewy freshness of her complexion, he knew she’d need his help.

27 thoughts on “WHO WOULD I BE FOOLING?”

  1. Who wants to look like an old demented teenager? I think it is very American (and Australian) to look and be anything but what is now. Of course, being male puts me at a disadvantage. But a whiff of plastic surgery and I am out. I know, I know, men go for the much younger looking one, but they make mistakes and lose fifty percent each time, and get known around town as Mr 50%…
    Call me a fool, but I am happy with a woman older than me. Wouldn’t dream of foregoing that for someone with a stretched steely Stalinist determined chin and bazooka concreted tits,

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    • Ah, Gerard. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. I don’t at all call you a fool for your personal tastes, and I’m sure all women older than you (as I believe I am) should thank God for men like you. However, perhaps your scorn for the misguided is misplaced. I thought her a more a figure of pity. Perhaps that didn’t come through. By the way, there was nothing Stalinist about her chin. It was more like FDR clenching his cigarette holder between his teeth and telling us all we had nothing to fear but fear itself.) And what’s all this about bazookas and concrete? I don’t believe I said anything about any part of her below the chin.

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  2. Isabelle

    So well said, Nina. I did think you were a little crazy when you got the face peel! I knew it was painful – just not how painful. This is a column for one of the women’s magazines. Hope you submit it.

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    • Thank you, Isabelle. I did know your thoughts about the face peel, though; they were writ clear on your face.

      Are there “women’s magazines” anymore? Do you mean the “fashion” ones; the “homemaker” ones; “Ms.” — if it’s still around? My age is probably speaking here, but I’m tired of trying to market myself. You, on the other hand, are both younger by ten years and very good at it. You also seem to enjoy it. How about you represent me as my literary agent, for 20%-25% of the take? There’s a lot of publishable stuff backed up on the blog already. When you’re ready, let’s talk…. 🙂

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  3. This is priceless, Nina. Well said and so true for so many women. Okay, I thought (only) of a facelift, and that went no further. Yes, volunteered anesthesia when older is crazy! I want to keep the brain cells that I have, I’ll need them. Thanks for a few chuckles, and your honesty with your usual wry sense of humor. Christine

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  4. This is a great article , your photo shows a face of beauty no need to suffer any pulling and tugging , wish I had your beauty and brains too. I am 60 this year and tonight as I was helping the grand children with different projects all I really yearned for was my youthful energy and maybe my youthful teeth , oh what a combination but honestly energy is a great asset and mine is depleted of late ha ha . I do agree that good grooming is something that helps us all look and feel better and your post has me booking a hair appointment asap. I do enjoy reading your excellent posts . Kind regards. Kathy. xxx

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    • Thank you for all the very kind words, Kathy. (I had a mother who used to say, “Yes, you’re smart, but….”) And only 60? I’d trade in a heartbeat!

      Well, yes, the energy does start to dwindle with the decades, but maybe we waste less of it on foolishnesses as we grow older. Grandchildren can really sap it, though, although I would never call energy spent with them as foolish. Can you carve out some time for yourself, too? I’m glad you’re going to the hairdresser. Sprucing oneself up does always help.

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  5. I wish I could have been on that bus! Oh, to see it with my own eyes. This reminds me of Smokey Robinson, who I think must have had multiple eye work done. I keep screaming back at the TV when I see him, “Smokey! Blink!”

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    • I don’t understand why men seem to find her funny. (Bill did too, when I first described her to him.) The nicest men can be unkind. And here I thought I was writing pathos, and perhaps a lesson in vanity undone. I confess I am unfamiliar with Smokey Robinson’s appearance. Different strokes for different folks.

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  6. There are little things you can do to look better but too much of the major things don’t make you look like you are 30. I had a peel once. Yikes! It was a short down time one but they didn’t say that my face would still hurt 10 days out. It did look smoother for a while but then it went back to what it was. Dreaming about looking younger is something we all do but I agree with another commenter. I would love to have the energy of a 20 year old back!

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  8. Jools

    There is so much weight placed on ‘looking young’ these days that even the very young succumb to the pressure for Botox injections, peels and fillers. The thought of any of this horrifies me, let alone the idea that one might voluntarily put oneself ‘under the knife’, purely to deal with the natural evidence of age, or, as I prefer… ripening, maturity.

    The scariest thing of all is to see those pictures of people who seem to have totally ‘lost the plot’ opting for one procedure after another, until their faces are a parody of natural beauty, misshapen, swollen and immobile, all actual character and individuality destroyed under layers of plastic and chemicals.

    At 54, lines, wrinkles, blemishes and a saggy chin have taken up residence on my face. But I don’t believe I will ever want to do more than apply a decent mid-market face cream and drink plenty of water. I’ll get back to you when I’m 80 if I’ve changed my mind!

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  9. Wow, Julie! This topic sure pushed your button! “Under the knife” certainly puts it very clearly. On the other hand, at 54 you are to me a mere wisp of a girl. What can you know of real lines, wrinkles, blemishes and sag? The part of your comment I like best is your getting back to me when you’re 80. That gives me twenty-six more years. I’ll be 109! Thank you, thank you so much!!!

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  10. Oh, my, it’s as though you took my inner dialogue or my conversations with close friends and aired them. I loved this post and your description your voyage through should I/shouldn’t I. Thank you for writing it.

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    • Thank you for reading it. At the very moment you were posting your comment I was over on your blog thanking you for your visit and inviting you to come again. And now I see you have! I’m so glad.

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  11. I’m with your medical friends all the way. Don’t even think about an unnecessary anaesthetic. The brain is a wonderful organ and clever enough to do a lot of it’s own repairs, but as we age it gets a bit saggy too (or dehydrated) and it is sheer cruelty zap it with chemicals that it may struggle to clear out.

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  12. I’m with you. No way to de-age all of me so I’m just going to attempt to go gracefully. But I can’t tell you how much I love the beginning of this sentence: In my early sixties, when I was once more between husbands…

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