not to be read if you possess a blueprint for enjoying your life.

The thing is, I'm going through a mid-life crisis, but it's kind of precious since it's my first one of what is certain to be a regular item on the menu of my life for the next, oh, fourteen-odd years.  It's kind of sweet and darling and golden in its twirly, twirly petticoats and its first-serious-wrinkles way.  It's adorable in its holy-shit-that-old-broad-in-the-mirror-is-me kinda fashion.  The genuine taken-aback by the quasi-unrecognizable element - it's nothing short of bizarre.

I was never traditionally gorgeous.  I wasn't a looker in high school.  Allow me to qualify that statement: I was not asked out on dates.  This was possibly more a lethal-to-sexual-development combination of an older, protective brother who was a well-known senior upon my arrival as a freshman, who most likely warned everyone of ugly mishaps if they so much as dared to turn their head while I bounced in blissful unawareness down a locker-filled hallway, and my being a gigantic fucking nerd.  I wasn't nerdy in dress, but I was nerdy in reputation, having been a member of the TAG (talented and gifted) program for all of grade school, etc., bla-dee-blowhard-blah.  I got academic awards and achieved - uh, stuff.  Good grades.  High marks in fitness, even.  Presidential fitness award.  Played classical piano for school assemblies.  Was in choir.  Church-attender.  "Good girl."  You know.  Typical hallmarks of your classic nerd.  (That and I have adhd and don't edit my thoughts super-well and was much, much verbally stumblier than I am now, and I am now very stupid in social settings so you can guess at how gawky and stumbly and unpleasant I was in all my excited, bubbly dorkiness.

Big-ass sigh.)

So.  Threatening older-brother who was a decorated athlete and over six feet tall in high school, x nerd signs all over my personal front yard = devestating lack of courting from all but the most annoying male members of the society of my high school for the bulk of my participation in its circumference, unwilling as I mostly was.  This informed my theory of How I Looked To People, Both Male and Female.  I.e., unattractive.

(A year in Brasil as an exchange student during my junior year, as a sixteen-, and then seventeen-year-old horny-ass girl in a foreign locale rife with seriously hot, very willing protagonists, UNaware of my nerdy persona nos Estados Unidos and aWARE that I was a horny-ass Americana, gave me a new perspective on my appearance.  I still chalked up the interest in my sexual wares as my being foreign, being American, sort of like how boys at my school would've probably behaved toward the female French exchange student, no matter how mildly attractive, if we'd ever had one, simply because of the stereotype about how sexy French girls are.  There sure as hell was a stereotype about American girls in Brasil, thanks to American cinema.  I was a disappointment to an awful lotta fellas who assumed we'd be fucking within seconds of an embrace based on the myth.  So I had enough sense to recognize I wasn't merely attractive as a result of my physical merits.  I just wasn't sure what the balance was.  I got that I was taken more at my current value than I would have been if I were still at home, attending my regular school, allotted all of the baggage of having grown up alongside the people there.  Still - a somewhat muddy reflection of me, in the end.)

Once my sentence at public school had been served, with time off in the foreign spot for good behavior, etc., I began to have a better idea of my appeal.  I wasn't sure, despite that, because the adhd is so off-putting and socially crippling.  I'd assess the mirror for hours, turning this way and that, smiling, pouting, mincing, but it never gave me that final assent: yes, you are pretty.  No, you are not pretty.

I just wanted to finalize it, just nail it down, so I could carry on and walk through my day either confident that I was, and behaving accordingly (whatever that fucking would've entailed), or not.  I settled on -- feeling unsettled.

I had a few boyfriends after high school, between the years of nineteen and twenty-one, one of whom was very outdoors-adoring, and once I'd been on enough adventure-dates with him I realized I hated a) makeup and b) him.  (He was an utter ass; lovable, but really, just as ass as a human can be.)  The important thing I took from the relationship was how stupid and pointless makeup is (I'd already come to this conclusion about bras that give the appearance of larger, rounder breasts) - the deception is just embarrassing once the moment of truth arrives, and then you feel like you owe the lucky person an explanation, which sort of totally sucks the sexy out of a moment like nothing else. 

So I was determined to discover the level of my attractiveness to those-who-would-be-attracted based on my natural appearance.  (Also, I figured out just how much I genuinely liked sex, having it, and not allowing stupid shiz like embarrassing, oh!, my breasts are NOT double-Ds! moments to complicate or, truly, dilute the pleasure potential.  HEY, YOU, EMBARRASSMENT: GET OUTTA MY ORGASM.)

Enter stripping.  (I know, it ain't classy-sounding, like "burlesque."  I don't sugarcoat.  As already explained w regards to the makeup and bra business.  You will eventually adjust.)  The convoluted beginnings of the stripping I may have already explained in some prior post, but I don't remember, and I don't much care.  That was that story, this one is this.  And I cannot pinpoint just what it is making me so pissy about refusing to extrapolate that part.  Guess it's my dislike of the imagined audience giving me a scolding look.  Your scolding looks are angering me.  Especially the imaginary portion of the (imaginary) audience, which, btw, includes you.  Yes.  You.  Stop smirking.  Let's un-de-rail this thing, shall we?

It took a while, and some coaxing on the part of many acquaintances/friends made in those cloying strip-club dressing rooms that were sometimes closets with a mirror and a low shelf and a bulb dangling from a string, to recognize the validity in costume for the role of stripper.  I had to be almost held down at one point, by a woman who viewed herself sort of club-queen at the Pure Platinumb (the "b" in that is my clever addition) marched me over to her chair, who plopped me down and proceeded to clown my face out of existence under several trowels-full of heavy makeup.  The works.  Then she shoo'd me out of the dressing room where I'd been dithering and into the dark club, where I was suddenly reacted to by SEVERAL customers at once.  As in, more than two.  Possibly as many as three.  It was weird.

After that, I got more comfortable with the idea that I was attractive.  I got used to being whistled at or looked at as a pretty, a beautiful, woman, though -- not really.  I was always sort of surprised by it when it wasn't at a strip club.  If someone spoke to me on the street or wherever people say random things or make animal noises at pretty people, it always sent a shock of color to my face and a mumbled thanks or stupid thing that would burble helplessly from my lips.  The reason this is kind of amazing is because, if I were dressed in a two-inch skirt and fishnet half-shirt minus any undergarments, with a full face of makeup and hair pinched and prodded and six-inch stilettoes, I had no difficulty firing back immediately if someone said something to me regarding my appearance, or really, anything at all.  It was the costume - it empowered me to be bold in my response to an approach by a strange person, woman or man.  In my day-to-day, where I wore large, balloon-ish, clown-y clothes that never alluded to my job, I was incognito, and as such, unequipped to respond to comments about my looks.  Shocked, even, when people would hit on me when I was dressed - goofily, in thrifted, sloppy, ill-fitting things that hid my shape, my hair in a low bun, my fifties-librarian glasses with no lenses masking my face.  Why would they? - I wasn't pretty.  I didn't have any of the markers of a pretty girl on my person.  Surely it was fool-proof (it wasn't). 

So looks are mostly about markers, I figured out, especially because I leapt from dancing to acting school, and got even more into costumes and props and markers and what does and does not conspire to make someone react to one's appearance.

At a certain point, I realized that there was an element of basic, good genetic shape to my physique and my facial structure that made people think I was pretty or good-looking or whatever, but that I could disguise it, mask it, or I could appeal to a certain sub-set of people based on the costume I was wearing at that moment.  Some days, I deliberately appealed to the crowd, because I needed it.  I needed them to tell me I was pretty, good looking.  I needed them to approve of me without knowing me, without learning about my tics and my dorky, shivery-lapdog behavior that would out me if I were sans costume, because I needed the ease of approval from strangers.

Some days, I did not want that approval.  I would go as far as I was allowed (particularly at work, where, uh, looking ugly and unappealing was rather frowned-upon, but I pushed it as far as I could, just to test the people around me, test them to see if they would discover an attractive person beneath the ugly, crusty, off-putting exterior, because I wanted to believe that if *they* could find that attractive person in there, maybe she really did exist).

(This was all very organic, very indirect.  I wasn't aware of all of this on a conscious level.  I can see it now, plain as day, natch, but back then it was just some foggy feeling I intuited about how I should operate, some weird, ingrown vibe that I found irrestible and was obedient to.  No better explanation for the behavior than that, which seems sad, somehow.)

And then some good and bad things happened, and I quit acting and I quit life, sort of, at least, I seriously tried, and would have succeeded but this dude who eventually became my husband intrigued me and then insisted that he wanted me to stick around and have his babies and be his incredibly argumentative wife who refuses to do or be anything he would really view as "dream girl" quality but then be horribly contrary and work tirelessly to do and be all of the things that constitute that person when he isn't expecting it, and oh!, did I mention, my husband's a (medal pending) saint?  Because he is.  A grumpy, mostly perfect saint.

So here I am.  Thirty-six and grabbing the last dregs of these days of what I finally realize are pretty ones.  But get this: it's already nearly gone.  The sands have shifted downward, they have slipped trickily out of my grasp even as I scrabble over the surface of my body of my face of my head of my sanity and clutch, clutch, clutch.  The costume days are drawing to screechingly abrupt halt.  I am - aging.  I am not pretty any longer.

I wouldn't resent it so goddam much if I could have ever, just for one goddam day, really believed it in the first place.  I didn't know I had it 'til it was gone.   And - make no mistake.  It is GONE.  Irrevocably, irretrievably departed.  My costumes now will involve ridiculous old ladies.  How much costume they'll be is anyone's guess.

I reach out for old age and I beg for it.  I am no pious patient.

*attempts to leap over yawning chasm onto opposite shelf where old age rests, refusing to acknowledge how that maneuver has never yet worked, that cutting in the line is impossible and the growth necessary in the interim is vital, and in fact the attempt to cheat somehow seems to delay the growth so much that it will arrive later than it does for everyone else and she will be left, standing, alone, behind, ashamed of her attempted circumvention of the necessary route through painful reality and its resultant pain will lacerate her more as it is coupled with shame*

Eat me, oh, young, oh, youth, oh, offspring.  Pierce me with a skewer and devour me.  Save me from this slow, wretched amble into obscurity, into the dust, into ever-deepening madness.  I am not so dried and hollowed that I won't still make an excellent meal. 

Just be sure to put some gravy on the table.  In case.

Comments

[Laws]

"all but the most annoying male members of the society of my high school"

I thought we had a pretty good dating experience in High School.. I did..

As for looking good, SHit, I gave up on that a while ago.. Who wants to look good for ever?

PS Your man is a Lucky one!

-Laws

[cynematic]

Hey. Miss you. Stopped by to peek into your brain, which is agelessly, timelessly beautiful.

[marcie]

I'm not going to tell you that you are beautiful, you already know that I think so. I will tell you that I get it. I get everything you say. This was a great post.

[jaelithe]

You're still pretty. I would totally do you if I swung that way (and if we weren't both happily married to saintly men). In fact, I'd be scared you were out of my league.

I believe you will be pretty at 80, actually. Your brain and your heart shine through.

[roo]

I never knew about your theatre past, lildb-- but it explains another level of why I have always felt--- well, I'm a weirdo, and you seem to get me, and, well, you're a self-proclaimed weirdo whose written version of herself I feel I understand. Is it any wonder I used to design costumes? Every outfit is a costume if you don't know who you're dressing.

Maybe if you could see your reflection really as a stranger, you could design yourself fabulous and new for the next stage, whatever it becomes.

[Kelly]

Is it the 30s? Because damn if I don't look at those late teen and 20-something whippersnappers and get all kinds of jealous. And lord knows I'm not nearly as lovely to behold as you, but I lament the idea that one day, men will stop looking at me. Completely.

I need to get qt's take on aging. I can wrap my head around me and my husband in our 60s, still fucking away like we do now. I hope that's what age brings though. Like wine. Something awesome.

[MotherOfBun]

OMG. You are GEORGOUS! When I first met you I though you wre in your early 20's. And I'm stunned at you being 36. (Me too.) No way! Trust me, darling. I don't think you'll ever have to worry about losing your hotness!

[MsPrufrock]

I understand where you are coming from. I allowed myself to gain a stupid amount of weight in my early 20s, and I've just started (at 30) trying to get rid of it. I'm annoyed at myself for taking so long, and letting those good years slip away from me. Additionally, I never acknowledged my own attractiveness when I was nice and thin.

I know it doesn't matter, but for the record, I always see your Twitter avatar and think how annoyingly gorgeous you are.

[apathy lounge]

Deb,

Here's a little secret that's not such a secret in and around the blogs (though I wish it was): I turned 50 last month. Shocking, no? I mean, of course, shocking that I can admit it and not look around for something sharp so that I can poke my own eyes out in disgust. I remember feeling like you when I was 36 and thinking, "Holy Shit..40 is THE END and it's almost here!". It's not. Trust me. From where I sit, 36 is still sleek and supple. This in no way is me trying to invalidate how you feel. I felt it, too. It is real. But it's also real to look over your shoulder and envy how you were in the years prior...in much the same way that I'm doing right now thinking about 36. But one day I'll be a REALLY old woman and 50 will seem like 36 did. And I'll wonder why I didn't enjoy it more. I wish I were younger. I do. But I have no choice. I have to find a way to love myself anyway. You look great to me.

[qt]

I just want to skip right to the part where I am a 65 year old woman with a long grey braid, wearing clogs and living on a farm by myself.

[CatrinkaS]

Aging is a bitch - but the fantastic part? Is that when you read any comment made about aging later - years later - you look retrospectively like an idiot. "I said that THEN? When I was still gorgeous and thin? And, comparatively, an INFANT?"

SO. Good for you for coming right out at the beginning and sending a shout-out/nod to your much much older self living somewhere out there in the future.

And, while you are not fishing, certainly... and it isn't the Point (or at least not the Grand Point)... you are, it would appear, absolutely fantastic looking.

I don't have the blueprint, but I would pay a pretty penny if you know a dealer.

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

I think Neil has a point.

You could also try France. American cinema has reached there too.

[Monkey]

Shit. I only read the title after I read the rant (my blueprint disqualifying me and all).

Dude.

Do we need to talk again? AGAIN?

It will get worse, if being pretty really matters that much to you. And I have the time-delay pictures of my mother to prove it.

(Oh, and b/c I *know* you are a not so secret comment whore, I will share that this here was some mighty entertaining writing. I likesd it a lot, I did.)

[Neil]

May I suggest a little summer trip to Brazil. Then we'll talk again.

[bea]

My mother is still deeply sad about the loss of her beauty. She looks amazing and much younger than 65, but she looked better forty years ago.

I think I'm okay with looking good for what I am as opposed to just looking good. (This in direct contradiction to that Diane Lane commercial.) I know that my mental image of myself is quite a bit prettier and thinner than the real thing (an illusion I achieve by only looking in the mirror in flattering light and from flattering angles) - and as long as Bub stays away from me with that darned digital camera he got for
Christmas, I'm going to keep it that way.

[flutter]

fuck traditional, you are gorgeous.

[Black Hockey Jesus]

I don't know what to say in response to this but I wanted to say something, so this is just a self-conscious comment about itself standing in for a comment that says something.

Plus I think it's cool you were a stripper.