The New Natural

Brooke,

You asked me a question yesterday. Why did I decide to... what were the exact words?... to "use" Botox? The question niggled at me all day, as good questions do.

The easy answer is you and your services were highly recommended by Rubby, someone I trust. That's usually how I begin new adventures, new services, or new relationships: a lovely tip from someone I love, trust, and admire.

But why Botox? Why did I say yes to Botox, a decade (gasp) ago?

Again, an easy answer: I wanted to keep looking good. But there's a bit more to it, isn't there? Why do I want to keep looking good as I age? Fear of wrinkles? Fear of being discounted as old? Fear of losing my ability to attract people? Yes. Yes. Yes. But here's the deal: as we age, we are no longer in the center of the stream (a metaphor for life). We move to the edges. Sometimes we resist the move. How dare those youngsters push us off to the side?

Sometimes we move gracefully to an eddy or a calmer pool where we can still participate but be removed from the rush of the middle. And sometimes, we rest on the side, happy to watch, to guide, to cheer. Truth is, it's scary to get old, to get closer to the inevitability of death. But I also love the calmer waters. I really love being a container of all my ages. I still feel the ten-year-old building forts in the woods. I still feel the wild, eighteen-year-old pulling all-nighters in college, the twenty-seven-year-old producing original plays and then dancing all night at clubs, the thirty-five-year-old interviewing murderers, the forty-year-old single mother, the fifty-year-old professor and author. I am all of them. If plumping up my skin so that my container can keep expanding and growing, well, I say yes. If plumping up my skin gives me the confidence to stay face-front to life as I age, then I say yes. If plumping up my skin disrupts people's judgment about old people and our relevance, I say yes.

There you have it, my friend. A longer answer to your short question. I know I mentioned that I had some judgment about 20-year-olds doing Botox. But the truth is, we are all finding our way when it comes to our relationship to beauty and self-confidence and a twenty-year-old choosing Botox might very well be similar to my finding an esthetician way back when and beginning my own dance with beauty and vanity and self-confidence. Judgment shelved.

Happy Thanksgiving. And yes, I am thankful for you and the artistic gift you lavish on others.

Love, L2