Post #10

Am I really that ugly?

The Crone Intelligence Briefing · Classification: Highly Opinionated · Mission Status: Proceeding with Sarcasm

Good morning my dears. I’d like to apologize from the start. I feel a MASSIVE rant coming on (huge FUCKING vent because I’m bothered by today’s topic). How is that different to every other day I hear you cry? WELL for a start every other day my concerns are tangible things you can see and hear and worst of all, can feel. Today I just feel like utter shit on a stick and that’s because I also look like utter shit on a stick too. I feel like a vapid, vain twat for saying so, but hey a Crone is still a woman so DON’T judge me.

Things started off okay, then I got a damn invite to go to a school reunion. For fuck’s sake a school reunion? Do people still do this? I thought we as a society had moved on from the Mean Girls Club that is comparison and one-upWOManship!

Well apparently not, because the dump that saw my head buried in a book, or head down the toilet getting flushed by dirty tampon water, has suddenly decided it did me great favors in my education and wants to invite us all back for a sadistic reminder. This abomination made its way to my inbox via a Facebook post. I don’t do social media because it’s just not my thing to lie about how great my life is going when it’s like a steaming pile of manure on a hot day.

So despite my best efforts, I see some familiar but older faces. The key toilet flushers and tight top brigade are right there grinning like a tooth whitening and fillers ad. WELL FUCK, I looked! I saw and despite being MY age, these cretinous hags (I’m being ironic) looked good. VERY GOOD actually. So comparison being the meanest mean girl of all, made me look in the mirror (one that hasn’t been cracked by my reflection) to see I look awful.

How did I not notice that I was this ugly? I peer closer, seriously have those melasma blobs always been there? How about the San Andreas fault lines down the side of my nose. Did I mention the jowls and floppy jawline? Have I been deluding myself all these years? When the FUCK did all this happen? It seems that while once I was quite the hot thing (I have the photos to prove it), my day has long gone. I begin to feel pity for Sleeping Beauty’s wicked protagonist, she was probably quite sweet, just overcome by rage and grief of the chaos that sinking hormones bring. Did she really want to claw out Beauty’s heart? Nah. She was misunderstood. She was more malfunctioning collagen than Maleficent. I see now she was probably a Crone in the purest sense. Well BALLS to it, this sucks. And makes me feel like the Mean Girls and NOT an empowered Crone who OWNS her flaws.

So now I’ve been suitably corrected by the FB updates of ‘friends,’ aging like a fine wine versus milk (like me). I wallow. I wallow long and deep. What happened to my smooth line-free skin, those refined poreless features? Did I do the wrong thing by choosing soft mood lighting in my home, and like a vampire only going out after dark to ‘cozy’ restaurants away from strip lighting?

I actually surprise myself and on this rare occasion that warrants tears, I don’t cry. Not a drop. Instead I tell myself. “Jeez Crone, you old hag, get a fucking grip of yourself!” If I say so myself, this is great advice. Why am I lamenting past youth and beauty? BECAUSE IT’S NATURAL TO GET UPSET about this. I’m a woman. My self worth has taken a hit, I feel undesirable to me! Yes. Me. I’m sabotaging myself again. WELL NO MORE. What do I do about this you ask? I didn’t smash the mirror. I didn’t call a cosmetic surgeon (but I might later when I’m not so emotional about my looks). I accept that I’ve changed. I’ll never look 21 unless I discover Dorian Grey’s secret.

The craziest thing is this. I will sort out my face and thickened waist and drooping ass-cheeks and chafing thighs and splayed ‘double stream of piss’ producing labia, AFTER I get my hormones on an even keel. They are responsible for this mayhem, (something that irritates me no end, because I am the harbinger of chaos). Estrogen keeps skin plump with moisture, maintains collagen that keeps the skin thick and elastic. When it drops everything dries up, gets thinner, is slow to heal and voila wrinkles and some skin that’s like wafer paper and other skin that needs an orbital sander to keep it smooth (like my hooves). No wonder that thin skin let’s sun spots show through and creates those rancid skin tags.

Progesterone controls oil production so when it drops everything dries up even more and worse still that affects the skin barrier that keeps things healthy and free from irritation and infections. To confuse things even more testosterone goes nuts. Lower estrogen and progesterone mean that it’s the dominant hormone and in the skin it can increase oil production and show up as acne. BUT this little schizo headfucker also keeps skin firm and it can also get low along with the other hormones, dry things out by halting oil production and skin firmness. I mean that’s a bunny boiler hormone right there! But for me it’s at least not given me adult acne, that’d be about as sexy as a rotting badger. But that’s another post.

So, in the meantime, I (TRY to) eat better, drink better (lost the booze) have made BFFs with protein and good fats and sleep. Yeah I know, half of those seem as likely as pigs flying but it looking and feeling ugly is incentive enough. So now I’m off to research some cheap and cheerful skincare staples. When I’m done you can bet I’ll share that with you. We’re in this together, thick skin, thin skin. The whole lot. So girls, don’t let the Mean Girl’s Club get you down. Better still don’t enroll as a member to beat yourself up!

Crone-ology Complete