Skin Care for My Soul
I have started a skin care routine. Well, in all honesty it isn’t really a “routine”. It’s more of an attempt. Of the maybe 14 chances a week to put something of some sort of value on my face that is supposed to be beneficial I might be at 50%? Maybe 60? And why at the ripe old age of 59, now 60, did I start a skin care routine? When ever since I was little I might maybe wash my face once a day if I was lucky, with the same soap most of my life… And even though I did theatre and used terrible make up for years, I never seemed to care. I don’t wear makeup, except for a random Tuesday here and there. And let me tell you this skin care is not so that I can look all glowy and beautiful to attract another man. So that maybe there’s a fifth boyfriend I can fall in love with and then have die? No, that’s not the reason. So what is it?
I think it really falls under the category of something to occupy my brain. I can research products based on what I think my skin type is to put on my face to “maintain and improve my skin health and appearance”, that was right off the internet… This task takes some mental capacity and it will take some time to try these things to see if I have a bad reaction to something (which vitamin C serum and I do not get along) or use a cream “that visibly lifts, tightens and firms as it helps defend against damaging free radicals”, again, straight from the internet.
I think probably the most pertinent reasons, are 1. if I remember, I can give myself a small pat on the back and since there are very few people around in my life who might give me a pat on the back, I can give one to myself. But I can tell you it doesn’t carry much weight. And 2. I think the better reason is I get to berate myself when I forget. To remind myself that I can’t do anything right that I have no willpower, no purpose, no point, no one to have young supple skin for, no one who would even notice the tiny lines around my eyes disappearing. Really, no one who gives a shit about me.
And I don’t think the skin care routine is anymore focused or valid then my attempts to scrape the paint off the door hinges in the rental house, make cards for a nonprofit organization, sign up for Instagram, walk 11,000 steps a day or try to learn “flossing". These are all just attempts to occupy the minutes of my day, every day, and not sink further into a swirling mess of depression filled with point-counterpoint of why I shouldn’t still be on this earth.
A couple months after Bret died when I started to pack up to move, I decided to drink all the fancy liquor that I had retrieved from Brian‘s house and make a good attempt at drinking myself into oblivion and forgetting everything. All I did was make myself very ill. And I forgot nothing. I think I’ve just been constantly trying to find things to occupy my brain if only for a minute so the constant chant of “Bret‘s dead, Bret‘s dead, Bret‘s dead” gets drowned out for a second or two. Like jeannie, I’d like a “break from me”.
It’s been over 2 1/2 years and, although the daily hysterical crying may have been reduced to a weekly tear and snot fest yelling “Fuck You” to Bret, the great fear and despair and loneliness and depression and guilt and anger and resentment have not seemed to subside 1 inch.
Maybe the retinol just hides them from the outside world better. And so maybe putting a triple action aging cream on my pain makes it prettier to view by the outside world because inside it’s still a shit show.
Does the argument then become I can’t kill myself, I just started a skin care routine.
