I turn 40 this September. 4-fucking-0.
There are certainly things about this body I’ve inhabited for four decades that I wish I could change.
Certainly I’d trade in my cottage cheese thighs for firmer skin.
I’d have moisturized early on and frequently like my mother and grandmother warned but I ignored. I have the hands of a 70 year-old woman. My hands could get a discount at the movies and score the early bird AARP special at IHOP.
And then there are the wrinkles that adorn my face. Both the “parentheses” around my mouth and the “11” in between my eyebrows, like a walking footnote. Ditto that advice I didn’t head about moisturizer. And wishing I’d started wearing sunglasses sooner in life.
Luckily, the appearance of wrinkles has coincided with adult-onset acne. Awesome! And Bacne, even better!!
I never really broke out when I was a teenager. Sure I might have gotten the occasional cute little teenager zit, but nothing that made me want to put a bag over my head and sprint to a dermatologist.
Then I turned 27.
A couple of days before my now-husband was to come to New York to visit me on our first “date,” I awoke unable to open my left eye fully.
Thinking maybe it was a sty or something getting in the way of my vision, I stumbled to the bathroom to check it out. Then I looked in the mirror, and I’m surprised it didn’t crack by the sight of this….thing.
It was a lump the size of Montana.
Right smack on the left side of my nose where the bridge meets the eye, impeding my eyelid from opening all the way.
Sexy, right?
It was hideous. Except that I didn’t know what it was.
A woman I worked with used to be a nurse, so I had her take a look at it. Upon inspection, she grimaced, then turned away and uttered over her shoulder “it’s a cyst. Better go get that thing drained.”
Then I googled “cyst” and resisted the urge to lock myself in my apartment. It’s a fancy word for Large Ass Zit.
Really?
I made a quick call to my physician, who referred me to a dermatologist. His only advice was to wash my face with a solution so full of benzoyl peroxide that it stripped the color off of my pillowcase. Then he injected that goiter with a steroid and sent me on my way.
Two days later, my cyst was still so bright and red that it could have guided Santa’s sleigh through a blizzard. There was no hiding it behind concealer or trying to mask it with bangs or glasses.
But I had a plan. A plan that involved remaining on Jon’s left side.
I met Jon at the bus station at Port Authority with a very choreographed hug that came in from the left, so he’d only see the right side of my face. Feeling like a paranoid idiot, I skirted over to his left side as we walked over to the subway area, wondering how long I could keep this game up.
And then, we got to the subway car. Ever the gentleman, he gestured for me to sit down first on the empty bench. Then he sat down.
On my left. I was screwed.
I battled internally at this point. Do I just acknowledge this growth and get on with it? Explain about it and hope he doesn’t bolt off the train at the next stop in a move of repulsion and nausea? Or do I just sit still, ignore it and hope he doesn’t notice?
I chose to point it out.
I mean, he was bound to notice it at some point, right?
So I awkwardly apologized for the zit, trying to play it coolly, as if it was no big deal. Jon listened politely, laughing sympathetically with me about it and shrugging it off.
Then he named it “Cecil”. My new friend and roommate. With it’s own zip code.
If he’d done this now, in my antsy and stressed-out stage of motherhood and insecurity, I probably would have crumpled in a ball and cried.
But back then, lighter-hearted and blinded by utter infatuation, I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.
Jon was able to make me feel better about something I felt so weighted and embarrassed about. He saw the humor in the situation and ran with it. Not in a way that made me feel stupid or hideous or at fault. But in a way that made me see how insignificant things were.
It was the first in many moments I knew I’d met my match.
Since then, I’ve received a more than a few surprise visits from Cecil’s relatives, gotten more lines and creases and saggy parts, and sprouted way more dimples on my thighs than when we first met.
Years later, I hope he still finds all of my imperfections no big deal.
Because there aren’t enough names to bequeath to all of them.
