crumbling and fading
I would very much like to be one of those people to grow old with dignity and grace, without fear or embarrassment, accepting the turn of the wheel, never looking back.
But I am vain. quietly, fiercely vain. Maybe that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Wouldn’t a vain person care about their clothes, and shoes, and wear makeup, and comb their hair on a regular basis? None of that has ever mattered very much to me. My vanity lies in my youth.
And I am not young anymore. Sure sure, I was able to get away, longer than most, with being old but looking young(er). But as Don likes to say, those days are gone forever and I should just let them go.
Obviously the wrinkles are the most upsetting. I wake up and look in the mirror and think “oh they’re sleep lines, they’ll go away” and some of them do but more and more of them do not. Now it’s just my face, all these wrinkles. And it’s only gonna get worse. How depressing that every single moment that passes is the best I am ever gonna look, and it’s not even that great. I looked so much better five seconds ago. In fourteen seconds I’ll be worse than the crypt keeper. I don’t even want to think about 46 seconds from now.
I plan to get all the Botox and juviderm I can afford. make me look like a weird melting wax figure I don’t care. I do not care.
The gray hair took awhile to start but now it’s coming at me fast and furious. It’s not enough that it’s gray/white/silver, which contrasts so nice against my dark hair. It has to change texture, too, become coarser. But thankfully, new growth isn’t shy. It really likes to focus in with laser precision on the most noticeable area, the hairline directly surrounding my face. Yay! So fun.
The wrinkles. The gray hair. The constant aching of tired old joints. As if that isn’t enough.
now, NOW, it’s my eyes. I can’t wear glasses! I’m too young for glasses! I’m too cool for glasses! I’m too goddamn perfect for fucking glasses. Glasses are for old people. Weak people. Losers. Not me. NOT ME.
The ones the eye doctor prescribed are suppose to help with my migraines. If I wear them as directed. She said to just leave them at work and wear them when I’m using the computer. Which is like every frigging second of my job. Whatever. They feel weird and I hate them so much and why do I even have to be alive anymore. They make everything seem so big and clear and crisp. What a bunch of nonsense. I don’t care about your anti-glare and blue light protection. I WAS FINE.
I mean yeah okay I look kinda smart, and maybe even a little cute, in them, plus the frames are this cool green color that the eye ladies helped me pick out.
But this is beside the point!
The point being that I am old and my eyes are failing me, just like the rest of my body, because the world is a terrible place and human existence is a joke but wait. you know what I think? The wrinkles are here. The gray hair is here. Menopause will be any second now. But my eyes? I think my eyes are okay, except for these eye places can’t accept this, they’re a bunch of shifty a-holes. They don’t make money off people with brilliant eyes like mine. They make money off fucked up broken eyes. So of course they are going to prescribe me glasses I don’t need. Because they want to ruin my perfect wonderful vision by brainwashing my eyes and convincing them they need correction. They want to break my eyes! Turn them to mush. So I’ll have to keep coming back to them, over and over, to get more and more glasses, enslaving me to the vision correction industry forever. I AM ON TO THEIR GAME. I can see right through them (because I have perfect vision).
The lady doing my initial exam though did think I was 30, and I cried and asked her to be my wife.