My Face

The other day I went to the dermatologist. I love my dermatologist. She a good-humored gal in her mid-thirties who laughs at my jokes and understands my repulsions to personal skin ailments. When I was a teenager, she stood in the background, just an assistant at the time, and I had to explain my pimple woes to a middle-aged, stone-faced, man who seemed annoyed by my presence and more disgusted than I was that the cheap zit creams weren’t working.  He was always trying to sell me expensive things so I could have skin like a Hollywood star. I thought that was too lofty for a bumpkin like myself and was perfectly content with only a bi-monthly breakout. When his lovely assistant finished med school, the grumpy doctor passed my pimples and me over to her and we’ve been happily battling zits, rashes, and flakey patches since ’09. She checks my big, belly mole (I have a big, belly mole) while I complain about my sandpaper forehead in an exhausted Jewish mother’s accent. She likes that accent. “Ya forheyad looks like sandpaypa!”

Anyways, I went to see the dermatologist because I have a reoccurring eczema patch on my left shin. It’s about the size of a quarter and pops up every five years or so. The special eczema cream that gets rid of it in under a week (the miracle of science!) comes in an enormous jug that could easily coat and lather a family of eight or nine flakey folks but it expires after two years so by the time my flakey patch shows up again, my miracle mayonnaise jar has no magical powers left… so I have to go back to the dermatologist, show her my leg and she goes, “Yep. It’s eczema.” And then writes me a new prescription for the mayo tub and I skip off into an ointment daze.

Last month, while she inspected my leg I rambled about life in your late twenties.

“So, how about independence, huh? What a racket.”

“Yep. It’s eczema.” she replied. “Do you have any other concerns today?”

“Well,” I said bashfully, swinging my legs as they dangled from her vinyl examination table, “I’m worried about my forehead.”

“I think it’s looking a lot better!”

“Oh no, it’s only about a 320 grit these days. That’s great!” I told her. “It’s that I do this a lot when I think.”
And then I crunched my eyebrows together like I was reading a sign from acres away. “I’m furrowing. You can see the furrow line even when I’m not furrowing, especially if I’ve being doing a lot of thinking that day.”

“I don’t see a line.”

“I haven’t thought much today.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m just wondering if there’s something I can do now to prevent it from becoming Tom Selleck-y. Are there eyebrow exercises? Creams? Butters? A facial pickling process of sorts?”

She stepped closer and looked at my head.

“You do have a really strong brow muscle and if I’m being honest, that’s not going to get better... but Tom Selleck is a good looking guy.”

“But no! I’m so young! I can’t wrinkle and furrow at this age!”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

“Really? Well you know… you’re not too young.”

I furrowed my Selleck brow and narrowed my eyes at her.

“… for Botox.” she whispered and I gasped. “Wait wait wait!’ she said, “Hear me out!”

“I could never!” I told her. “I’m twenty seven!” I shrieked.

“Just listen!” and she explained to me the preventative elements of putting tiny dollops of Botox into creases created by muscle movement. I glared at her while she explained this. Then she would make an interesting point and I would lean in, a faint, hopeful smile creeping along my face and then I would come to, jerk myself away and rest my chin on my shoulder. “No.” I’d whisper.

“I started Botox at twenty-seven.” she admitted. I eyed her forehead. It was like flawless satin. She could be twenty-two, bee bopping at a concert on Spring Break. Looking at her forehead made me stop resisting and consider just one little squirt of Botox. Just one little squirt, right between the eyes, and wham bam. Problem solved. She continued talking about it while I thought about vanity and my life long excitement to age, and how I would always deny ever having Botox no matter who asked me.

“So you’re saying it wouldn’t be a filler, it would just stun my brow muscle.”

“Exactly”

So I couldn’t scrunch my brows together anymore?”

“Yep. Exactly.” And in that moment my little heart broke because I wouldn’t look like me anymore. I scrunch and furrow and raise and wiggle my brows all day everyday, telling stories, writing emails, even watching TV. 

Sometimes Mom watches me watch TV because I react as though I’m in the scene. I can’t tell a story with stoic eyebrows. I suddenly found it all very sad.
"This is my face!" I shouted in my head.

I stomped up out of there with my jar of mayo and went to my favorite coffee shop. Andre, the coffee guy, eyed me curiously while I waited in line.

“What are you doing?” he asked when I stepped up to the counter.

“What?”

“With your fingers…on your eyebrows.”

I realized I’d been smoothing my thumbs along my eyebrows, trying to press out wrinkles and massage my overworked muscles.

“Andre!” I shrieked, “I’m going to look like Tom Selleck!” and I told him the whole story. Andre, a sassy, no-nonsense type finds me amusing. He laughs at me while I agonize over a beverage choice, chuckles while I mutter and dig through my purse, and makes fun of my sensitivity to caffeine. He has helpfully introduced me to lots of fun coffee drinks that aren’t so potent but then he ridicules me when I order them. Andre told me my dermatologist sounds like a jerk. “You don’t need Botox. You’re twenty seven!”

“That’s just it Andre! She’s not a jerk and she a has a forehead like room temperature butter!” I took my coffee and left Andre rolling his eyes.

A couple days later I had moved on from my face woes to worrying about work things and hadn’t thought about Botox or the devastating, personality-stunning effects it would have on my disposition. But then!

My friendly drug-dealing neighbor came over and asked me to help him move some furniture. This whole ordeal was very odd but that’s a tale for another day. While we were talking he told me I had some makeup smeared under my eyes.

“I’m not wearing any makeup.” I told him.

“Oh.” he said and then there was a pause. “What about last night. Were you wearing makeup last night? I think it’s smudged.”

“I was not.” I informed him and I rubbed under my eyes because now I was getting insecure. I kept talking and the expression on his face changed. He delicately interrupted me.

“I’m sorry”, he stammered, “Has someone hit you? Is it a bruise? Is someone hitting you?”

I stepped over and looked at my face in a car’s side view mirror. I looked at my eyes and back at him and I sighed.

“That’s just my face, Jordan."