I have something in common with my two children right now. Of course, I’ll always have something in common with them–at least I hope so–but I’m not talking about the fact that they came from my womb or that we are all tall or even that we'd happily eat barbecued hamburgers for dinner every night (but, sadly, don’t).
No, there's something else I have in common with my kids, and to be honest, it's something I'd prefer to have absolutely nothing to do with. All three of us have at least two (and in my case three) ginormous zits on our foreheads.
Look, I get that my kids are breaking out right now. Their hormones are in extreme overdrive, and they are both terrible at washing their faces before bed (no matter how many times I remind them), but while, yes, my hormones may be in a very different type of extreme overdrive, I haven’t skipped a day of washing my face before bedtime since 1994, no matter how tired I am. I’m not kidding–not one single day!
Breaking out is sort of a teen (or tween) rite of passage. Luckily, my kids are both blessed with beautiful skin and don’t have acne (knock on wood), but it is a rare day when one of them doesn’t have a pimple or two on their faces.
And trust me, it takes every single bit of self restraint I have not to squeeze those pimples on my darling children’s faces when they sprout a white head. (The white heads on my face aren’t so lucky.)
But I have to ask the question: Why are there pimples on MY face?! I’m forty-blah-blah-blah (blah-blah-blah). Shouldn’t I be done with breaking out? (That’s one year for every blah, in case you were wondering.)
Look, I’ve already got enough unpleasantness going on with my face. I’ve got wrinkles to deal with, the ever expanding size of my pores, and those two spots on the right side of my face that my hairdresser (God bless her) always thinks is hair dye and vigorously tries to rub away. (I keep hoping one day she’ll actually rub hard enough and they’ll come off.) Pimples are for surly hormonal teenagers, not cranky hormonal forty-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-year-old women.
And why does my husband get off the hook? Why don't men of a certain age get breakouts? No hormone changes for them? As my daughter would say: "That's not fair!"
Until those hormones calm down, all I have to say is thank goodness for bangs, the ultimate anti-aging accessory. Not only do they cover up the fact that I refuse to use Botox, they do an excellent job of hiding the latest cranky-old-lady-hormonal breakout.
I just hope those little suckers don’t start popping up on my chin. I’d really hate to have to grow a beard.
