Beauty Pursuits of the Poor and Souless

After turning 25, I learned to accept the weird stuff that comes with aging in stride... mostly. I don't freak out about the fact that my ten year high school reunion has arrived and when I meet with patients at the plastic surgery office I work at, I'm not totally jarred when I see on the intake form that she is born in 1990. It has bothered me that the wiry grey hairs on my head seem to be multiplying, but I've been coloring my hair since I started my period so I'm not too tripped out by that. And yes, I've had to curtail the two am fast food trips and step up the stairmaster shit but I'm reminded that these changes will (hopefully!) ensure a long, healthy life. One thing I haven't accepted with grace though is wrinkles. The deep cleavage forming along my forehead is a sign of a happy life full of eyebrow raising surprises but there's nothing exciting about it.

Working for a plastic surgeon is a blessing and a curse. All day, every day is about vanity, youth and beauty. I absolutely love my doctor and the patients are mostly really fantastic but let's be honest, it's a landmine of narcissists and I am not immune. Easy access to Botox means at the first sign of lines I was begging the doc to shoot me in the face. I know, classy. After the treatment I came home that night to my boyfriend, Kelly. I stood inches from his face, lifted my hair off my forehead and exclaimed, "I got Botox!"

"Babe! What are you talking about!?!" he asked clearly amused. Kelly was no stranger to the myriad of minions it took to maintain this shit. He chauffeurs me to my hair and nail appointments and regularly is asked to weigh in on the results of my eyebrow waxing sessions. He's come to accept that I am his girly, girl and as long as I don't take a hundred years to get ready at night, he doesn't really care if I am prissy. Still, he plays the appalled bit when I lay something silly on him like getting Botox.

"What!?!" I ask innocently as if it's totally normal for a twenty eight year old woman to have disease injected into her face in the name of beauty.

"Babe, you don't need that stuff. What is wrong with you? Seriously. You don't need it," he says sweetly. I kiss him on the cheek and pull him to the mirror. We stand side by side for my presentation on the necessity of Botox.

"Okay, do you see on your forehead how you have those horizontal lines that look like parallel bars?" I ask as I point at his reflection in the mirror.

He nods, "Yeah."

"Well see if I don't get the Botox now, when I'm young, then when I'm your age I'm going to look like an old lady. And even though those lines look all sexy older man on you, on me they're just going to look like jaded burnt out stripper. Get it?" I say matter-of-factly.

A smile spreads across his face and he shakes his head and walks away. I feel victorious in my ability to convince the lawyer that I am right.

Today I get this email from him:

Get this: An Indian man just stopped me on the street to say that I was a very lucky man. Something about the wrinkles on my brow.

I agree; I am lucky.

It occurs to me that he would not stop you now....

Ass. I'll take my smooth forehead over luck any damn day.