Pimples

Last week, after giving me a good once-over, Remi shocked me with, "Have you considered using Proactiv?" She went on to tell me that someone my age shouldn't have to walk around with so many pimples, quite a wallop before even sip one of my coffee. 



Remi Roo, you are right. At my age, 38 years youngish, I should no longer be battling any form of acne, pimple, red bump, purplish hump or whitehead. This is my earned right having actually survived my hormonal angst-ridden teens - acne and all. Yet there I was looking in my bathroom mirror wondering what shade of cover-up would adequately mask the connect-the-dot pimple parade on my forehead.

Looking back . . . Bat Mitzvah, check, three ripe pimples between my eyebrows, captured famously in every shot. Playing high school volleyball, check, a smattering of pink puffy delights on my jaw line. Prom, check. Marriage proposal on top of a volcano in Costa Rica, check. Delivery room, Remi's birth, check, check, check. Right now as I write, check. Pimples. God bless their loyalty. Now go away.



I’ve been big into acceptance as I've aged and settled nicely into my body. I accept that a size 8 is my skinniest, that the scale is correct, that my hair is unruly. I accept that my knees have no reflexes left, that I'll never be a tennis champ, that I need to dye my hair every four weeks to cover the gray. Yes, I get that I am not still in college and can no longer drink that way and that staying up until midnight is an epic fight with my eyelids. Lacking an alternative, I accept wrinkles and love handles. I accept that my kids may beat me in a race and that skinny jeans were not invented for my ass. I accept that most of my socializing happens in the dairy aisle of Waldbaums, that owning a crock-pot excites me.

And I accept that as I approach 40, my kids think I’m old because it’s a step up from my mom’s generation when anyone over 30 was considered way over the hill and, worse, not to be trusted.  

I do. I accept. I really really accept. But not the pimples. Not the dreams of a giant blue tub of Noxzema.



Realistically speaking, my pimples do sometimes take a luxury vacation on someone else's face. There are remarkable moments when the planes of my face are smooth and almost radiant. It just doesn't last too long and that calls for drastic action. And here is where my guilt is laid out bare for all my readers. I also love love love to excavate my face despite not having an MD in Dermatology or a degree in Archeology.   FYI for another day, I also fancy myself a waxer... but I digress. 



I do not think I am alone. Have a magnifying mirror on your vanity? Flip your car visor down and use the bright white sun to find and deal with pimples – even while you are driving? Ever excise a pore of its baggage despite leaving deep nail marks and red blotches in its place? I mean, it simply has to be done to fight off the effects of hormones, lack of sleep, genetics and maybe the food I eat, not to mention the full moon, storms on the surface of the sun and Long Island traffic.

I don't want pimples any more than my daughter wants to see me with pimples. I don't want to bump into my old high school crush with a red bulbous mound on my cheek. I especially love chatting with someone while they stare agog at my forehead and talk to my pimple instead of me. Yet, as I write, I am hearing my mother’s words, the same words I tell my children all the time about beauty coming from the inside, that it is what’s on the inside that counts.  Those words are true, and vanity be damned, I am going to try to accept them myself! In the interim I know I can always count of Remi for sympathy and support. Apparently the desire to excavate is genetic and my skin is the gift that keeps on giving...