Beauty takes time

After Barbara Walters has reduced her celebrity interviewees into a blubbering mess, she is famous for asking them what they would tell their younger self. The answer is typically some altruistic “Hang in there, blah, blah, blah” response as the snotty tissue comes back out with the obligatory “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this” response. Cut to a soft-focus approximation of Bab’s face and break to a commercial. That’s pure B.S.

If I could talk to my 13 year old self, I’d travel back in time with a bottle of Proactiv, some hair gel and a brush because that bowl cut never did my face any favors. “Enjoy the dark hair while you can. Lather, rinse, REPEAT and remember braces and veneers are your friends” And finally “Your mother is a liar, it will not make you go blind so enjoy it!” would be my other little tidbit of wisdom. Oh, I know, it should be some “It gets better” crap, but it HAS gotten way better and now when I look back at my junior high school pictures and compare them to Paul’s pictures, I realize that a little more time in front of the mirror and some daily prep work could have saved me a lifetime of embarrassing junior and high school yearbook pictures.

It’s really unfair, Paul won the genetic lottery. Every school picture of him is like a Tiger Beat cover photo of David Cassidy. With a big toothy smile on his perfectly symmetrical face and a head full of dark hair on a 6’ 2” frame. My pictures however, look like washing my hair and face was an optional activity never practiced on school picture day and the skin on my face is a before image for acne control medication. Would it have killed the photographer to give me a second chance when I am not blinking? But I can’t blame him; my eyes are so squinty it’s hard to tell when they are open or closed.

Even today, Paul will spring out of bed humming like they do on sleep aid commercials, comb his hair with his fingers, do a quick mirror check and flash an Orbit smile. Ten minutes tops. My routine takes 45 minutes minimum. I have a movie star face in the morning, unfortunately its Jim Carey’s from “The Mask”. It gets stuck in a sleepy look for at least an hour after waking and my hair sticks out in ways that Linda Blair would have envied in “The Exorcist.”

As Paul was driving me to work this morning I offered him some advice on driving. He gave me the “Oh no you didn’t” look and then responded as he always does with “What’s your job?” And I answer with my stock response “To sit here and look pretty”. “That’s right, and what a good job you are doing” he says peering over his sunglasses in a mock leering way. Amazingly, he truly believes this.

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie Norbit. Ok, so shoot me. I love that movie. It makes me laugh. Rasputia walks out of the house and states “Beauty takes time, this just don’t happen!” I understand her. After forty four years it’s finally happening to me. It’s not about procedures, losing weight or straightening teeth. All I really had to do was get a different mirror to see a different me. I’m liking the reflection of myself through Paul’s eyes. Happiness looks good on me.