The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

About Boobies

Sometimes, you look in the mirror and you know that this is a day you actually look good. There's no obvious reason for it, you dressed in an outfit you've had lying about for ages, you did your hair the same way, you haven't changed your lipstick colour and you haven't lost any weight overnight. Still, it is glaringly obvious: baby, you look good today.

I knew it when I left the house to collect the wee one from her play date. My hair feels alive, somehow, and I'm almost certain it's got new gold in it. For too many months now it has been an indescribable hue, nowhere near the red or blonde I'm accustomed to seeing. A flat, flaxen colour, perhaps. Burnt cornflake. Then, today, there is a lazy kind of happiness in it. An inadvertant style and song in the tangling strands. My face is (for once) fairly clear and pinched with just the right amount of pink. My lipstick hasn't worn off yet, and I managed to apply mascara without smudging it or creating spidery clumps on the lower lid. The eyes seem to be a rainsoaked green, and I catch the gleam of them in the mirrors I pass and wonder if they were somehow impregnated with slivers of emerald while I slept. Normally, I'd have to cry rivers to get this kind of green. I haven't cried yet today.

I mention all of this because I've been fairly unimpressed with my physical appearance for a while now. Though I've lost weight, which was a huge accomplishment for me as it's never been an easy thing, I still felt as though I was watching a slow-moving decline of whatever physical beauty I might have had. I don't look like I used to, and it's becoming harder and harder to avoid knowing. I don't have that youthful quality anymore, the face isn't plump in a fresh way and there is a weariness in my half-hearted smiles. No one asks for identification when I try to buy wine and I get ma'amed by well-meaning youngsters who don't realize their politeness comes across as aggression. I've a shock of white hair blazing from my temple, zigzagging toward the crown, betraying my age. A hairdresser told me that it is 'distinguished', and I opted not to dye it because of her advice, but now I wonder if 'distinguished' is a word best suited for men in their fifties. I want to be vivacious for at least one period of time in my life, and I know I'm just about out of time for that. Who has ever heard of a woman reaching her physical peak in her forties? No, my potential for centerfolds folded a long time ago.

M. came into the kitchen, looked me up and down and said 'You look good today.'

I know, I thought to myself, but I don't know why.

This is the kind of thing that gets people into trouble. This is the stuff of a midlife crisis. You have a moment of indebatable attractiveness and you are hooked on it like it's heroin. You want to feel it forever, so you keep trying to hit that high. I know a woman who actually spent six thousand dollars on a breast enlargement last year. She's married, has a child, but for some reason she decided she wanted bigger, rounder, fuller breasts. It was not a practical decision, and her husband even tried to talk her out of it telling her that she was 'fine' the way she was. The problem with this is that women don't want to be described as 'fine'. Fine isn't good enough. Once we realize that we are just over the top of the mountain and are about to fall down the other side we try to find ways to pitch a tent and live at the peak. Fine doesn't make you feel attractive, and fine doesn't light a fire between your legs. What 'fine' does is make you want to put on sweatpants and lie in bed reading books about people are better than 'fine'. So, she got the breasts puffed and primped and they're pretty, I guess. Personally, I don't really like breast enhancements because to me they're a lie, and not a very good one. Everything around them are going to tell the truth while the breasts defiantly try to convince you otherwise. Like this woman I know, her face...oh, her face. Well, it hasn't been enhanced, let's just say that. So, what you have are two very happy looking breasts below a miserable, scrunched face on a forty-something who is trying to convince you she is a sexy beast. A mom you 'd like to fornicate with. She's hoping you'll look at her and make her your fantasy even if she has no intention of carrying through. She's angry that she didn't get enough attention back in her twenties when she (foolishly) married the first guy who asked her and gave all of her youth and devotion. Now that she knows him better and has come to realize that he was not the antidote to a lacklustre existence, she's trying to turn time backwards. With her boobies. Apparently, all of her husband's co-workers have a pool going about how long it will take before she has an affair. I know this because I know someone who works with him. I feel badly for the husband, though. Imagine the pressure of new breasts on your disgruntled, dissatisfied wife. They're the anti-airbags to a skidding marriage.

It's not just about breasts. A lot of women at the top of the mountain also engage in bizarre tanning rituals, becoming orange, taunting cancer. They get hair weaves which look like stringy, dead rodents or they pull their faces to the back of their heads causing an x-ray effect whenever you look at them. They inject their skin with botox so that you can't even tell if they're real or made out of wax and they bleach their teeth so much that you require sunblock with a high SPH just so you are protected if someone should make them laugh, causing a death gleam from between their lips. Then, they all start dressing the same, in that tight, unoriginal, expired sex kitten kind of way, and get collectively offended when they hear anyone use the word 'cougar'. I guess they didn't realize that it gets cold at the top of the mountain.

But, I get it. I understand the delusion. I walked through the hall of the school after computer class the other day and I noticed a head swing in my direction. When I looked I saw not a student, but a teacher. A really good looking teacher, and he appeared to be in my age group. He stared, and then he smiled, and I instantly felt beautiful. I was two inches taller until I fell asleep that night. It's not that I have any interest in the man because I'm happy where I am, but to have my attractiveness called out like that, with a gesture and an unspoken acknowledgement, made me feel like I'm still desirable rather than tolerated. There I was, with my real breasts and my less-than-white teeth and my hair pulled into a knot and I was getting checked out. I didn't have to spend six thousand dollars and I didn't have to tell a lie.

So, today. I look like me but there's an air of acceptance in the buoyancy of my hair. My body is marginally tighter because of the especially taut black panties I chose this morning, and I managed to apply my makeup in a careful, precise manner instead of my usual haphazard way. It cost me nothing, and even though it will be short-lived, meaning I will hate the way I look by nightfall, right now I'm hot and lovely, leaning only slightly toward 'distinguished' and 'mom-like'. I suppose that all a woman really needs is a genuine belief in her beauty. If you feel it, it will spread to others.

I'd rather spend six thousand dollars on finishing my basement or on taking a trip somewhere warm where the wind smells like flowers. When you eventually become old, I imagine you'd want to be able to reflect on all of the wonderful experiences you had, rather than look down at your perfect breasts, surrounded by sagging skin, age spots and regret. It won't matter, then, I think.

Wear a decent bra, find a flattering lipstick, brush your hair, take care of your teeth and most of all, smile. You'll save all kinds of money, you will not look like a sad, desperate freak. People will still think you're pretty, honest, and you can come down that mountain with pride.