Aging. Gracefully?

I spent $100 on an anti-aging face cream by Prevage last October. Stupid, I know, but my 30th birthday was coming faster than I expected, and the summer had brought on new spectacular heights of aging-anxiety...also completely unexpected. Did I think I would be 25 forever? Maybe. I certainly felt 25 when I turned 26, and again when I turned 27, and again when I turned 28. But then, something happened.

Perhaps I should have seen it coming: my every-five-years-mid-life-crisis. But this was only the second installment, my first crisis hitting me at 24. At the time, I was a flight attendant living in Chelsey, New York, living the big city dream: sharing a tiny apartment with college friends, dancing until sunrise, flying to and from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Costa Rica, taking acting classes and going on auditions. “The crisis” started in my written morning pages, grew into my conversations, and manifested itself in the decision to quit my flight attendant job (the pressurized cabin and recycled oxygen can’t be good for my skin), move back to Greenville (I have to start thinking about a serious career, can’t keep chasing a pipe dream), and go to Guatemala in the mean time (the change of scenery is sure to inspire me).

I should have seen it coming...but I didn’t. I turned 29 last February and still felt like I was 25. Little did I know that something had already begun to stir...something that would errupt later that year and change the course of my life forever.

I can be a complete idiot sometimes. Ask any of my friends. The “event” that pushed my aging-anxiety to spectacular new heights was my own damn fault. I had gone to the lake with my oldest friends and fallen asleep floating on my back on a raft next to the dock. I wasn’t wearing sunglasses, and I had failed to put sunscreen on my eyelids, which were, to my chagrin, effectively burnt the next day.

“I burned my eyelids!!!” I lamented to my girlfriends over the next three months. “They’re more wrinkled now. They’re sagging! They’re puffy...what have I done?!?!” Of course, it didn’t help the puffiness that I was crying myself to sleep every night over the new, older, image of myself in the mirror.

“You’re being ridiculous,” my girlfriends said. “You don’t look any different. We’re all getting older. Shut up about your godforsaken eyelids.”

They were right, of course...but I wanted a second opinion. I went to a free consultation with a skin specialist in town. “Wrinkles? What wrinkles?” the doctor asked casually at first glance.

Sheepishly embarassed at my apparent insecurities but emboldened by the resolve of my vanity, I responded, “I turned 29 this year and went to the lake this summer with my friends and burned my eyelids...” I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth. He must have thought I was a complete idiot. “I’m noticing more wrinkles around my eyes and my eyelids seem to be sagging more.”

“Ah. 29. It’s time to start thinking about some anti-aging prevention.” The doctor elaborated, “This kind of thing happens. You may go along for a while at the same level, then hit a sharp decline in terms of, er, the youth of your looks.”

I knew it. I had hit my decline. I went to the lake, burned my eyelids, and instigated my decline. It was here. My decline. And there was nothing I could do to turn back the hands of time. I went home and cried myself to sleep.

I decided to go for a third opinion, this time to my proper dermatologist. She was thorough, paying more attention to my moles than my wrinkles. “Let’s go ahead and remove these two before you go to South America and have them tested. I would hate to miss something and have you come home with a big ugly cancer problem.” (Aren’t I too young for cancer? Sigh.) They came back benign, but she told me to keep an eye on one on the bottom of my foot and recommended the $100 Prevage anti-aging face cream to boost my anti-aging routine.

By November, my second mid-life crisis was completely underway. I had decided to uproot my life in Greenville (Greenville is terrible for single people...it’s such a settled city) and move to Montevideo, Uruguay. I was changing careers, going back to grad school, changing directions, following my heart, living my dreams, and packing up the accumulation of five years of living a settled life in Greenville. All of my things were going into boxes to be stored in my parents’ garage. My dog had a new foster family. My house, in which I had invested years of blood, sweat, and tears, had a tenant. I stacked my art carefully between quilts in the back of the Durango. I rolled my favorite dresses into stacks and packed away my jewelry.

In November, I met some friends from New York in New Orleans to run the Ole Man River Half Marathon and say goodbye before leaving for South America. We were staying in a lovely hotel with their flight attendant discount, and I was the first to arrive. As I unpacked my toiletries, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. A rash had started to form on the T-zone of my face. Red and splotchy, it disfigured my image and distorted the symmetry of my face. A few minutes later, the rash began to spread around my eyes and red bumps encircled each eye socket. I rushed downstairs, hoping no one would see me, and ran to the front desk for help.

“Um, hi, I have a question. I just arrived from South Carolina, and I’m here to run the half marathon, and I just noticed this terrible rash on my face. It’s starting to take over my eyes, and I’m really worried about it. I think I should see a doctor. Where do you recommend I go?” I asked hurriedly.

“Oh, girl,” the young black receptionist leaned over the counter to take a closer look, “What did you do?”

“I think it’s this new anti-aging cream I’m using. It’s really aggressive, and I must be allergic.”

“Giiiirrrl, all you need for anti-aging is Oil of Olay, believe me. That’s what my momma says,” she re-assured me after consulting with the other staff and recommending the Tulane University emergency room. “Good luck!” they all called to me as I rushed off to the ER with my map of the city.

Sitting in the examination room, I scolded myself for my stupidity. I wasn’t raised to be this vain. My mother was always a natural beauty, always encouraging me to value myself for my abilities, my intelligence, my creativity, my generosity, and never wasting time or money on vain efforts to conform to some socially-dictated unachievable beauty ideal. What was I doing here, sitting in an emergency room in New Orleans without insurance with a hideous rash from a $100 aggressive anti-aging cream? I not only looked like a monster.  I felt like one, too.

During this stupor, the door swung open and in walked the emergency room doctor. Just my luck. He was smokin’ hot. A tall drink of water with long muscular legs and smooth dark skin, Indian descent maybe, with high striking cheekbones, carefree hair, and a perfect white smile, he bi-passed the chair and sat on a stack of boxes directly in front of me, his legs casually falling open as he leaned forward to listen to what I had to say for myself.

Carefully, I explained the rash to him. The Prevage cream. Turning 29. Worrying about the signs of aging. The visits to the dermatologists. He laughed with me at my stupidity, chatted with me about running, and prescribed a steroid cream that cleared up the rash within a couple of days. Before leaving the room, he gathered together his belongings and took a deep breath, “You know...there’s a grace to aging,” he said kindly, his cinnamon brown eyes fixed on mine, “and I’m saying this to the youngest person in the room.”

I ran the half marathon that weekend, and when I returned to Greenville, I returned the bottle of Prevage to my dermatologist’s office for my $100 refund. A few weeks later I got a bill for $400 from the Tulane University Hospital for my emergency room visit. Ah well, I know now that there are far higher costs for vanity, and I hope and pray that as I age, I encounter the best antidotes of all...kindness from a stranger, encouragement from a loved-one, and a healthy dose of grace.