Just For Men For Women

There are several different iterations of myself (and I expect there will be many more), but as they move backwards in time they become alarmingly intolerant. With respect to beauty standards, I remember a nineteen-year-old Daniela confidently decrying procedures that attempted to disguise or reverse signs of aging, turning her nose up at the thought of anything supporting inauthenticity. That’s a bold stance to take at nineteen, when the sun’s rays have not yet revealed how they will betray you at a later date in life, nor the pigment in the hair decided that, actually, early retirement sounds rather great. I wonder what she would think if she saw me now, poking and prodding at my face, roots and eyebrows sticky with a box of A-45 All-In-One Tube (“With convenient comb applicator!”), Auto-Stop (“You can’t go too dark!”), Semi-Permanent (“Lasts up to eight weeks!”) Just For Men hair dye, because the only two things that seem to be standing the test of time are what my anxiety orbits: commitment, and measuring things accurately.

The Mirror Has Two Faces

On occasion, my abuelita will eye herself in the mirror and joke, “Who is this viejuca? I don’t recognize her.” It’s a sentiment we commiserate on: Across a fifty-year distance I can look at myself in the mirror and take the same thing to heart. I hope and pray I’ll be blessed with a long and healthy life, but resent when I notice it might be happening. Ain’t that a trip.

When did you have (T)ime for that?

To feel your inferiority complex being called to attention when reading about a fifteen-year-old is a strange experience. Most of my greatest achievements so far happened after turning thirty. I wish—as a thirty-four, almost thirty-five, year-old woman—I could say I didn’t google the Time’s Kid of the Year and its honorees in search of reasons to believe why they weren’t all that special, or any more worthy than I would have been of receiving that distinction at the same age (or even now), but unfortunately I can’t. Nor can I say I discovered any evidence to support such a claim.

The rat race, but make it infinite

The disquiet of being shortchanged becomes harder to escape in the pursuit of sacrificing the unknown amount of time I have to things and ideas that should make me feel complete, but only leave me emptier. Ironically, this allows me to hold space for anger and despair when witnessing my aging body with little—as I discover more and more—of anything that I would label in my own definition as substantial to show for it: I had no idea life was passing me by on my own dime.

Slow and steady, emphasis on the slow

For a period of my existence I ran six miles daily at a 6:45 pace, no matter the weather or how my body reacted. Speed and prowess felt very important to me—a sort of intoxication with the idea of being the best for the sake of being the best. More recently, I walk a lot; out of choice, but increasingly out of necessity. This altered form of exercise takes longer, my heart beats much slower, and my muscles don’t build up nearly as much strength. But I cover the same distance and end up at the same destination. I’m just able to take in a lot more of the world along the way.  

Thank you, Mr. Sheffield

While in a vortex of binge-watching television shows, I come across an episode of The Nanny where Mr. Sheffield lectures Nanny Fine for being distraught when depicted as “older.”

“Why are you Americans so obsessed with youth? You know, I prefer the more civilized, European sensibility that people improve with age, like fine wine.”

Part of me feels stupid that a swell of gratitude rises in my chest in receiving validation from an early ‘90s sitcom, while another part acknowledges that behind a cheesy line was a human being with a shared experience, writing down words rejecting the notion of expiration dates. It’s the little things, I guess.

I’ll take them both, Morpheus

Two pills are becoming easier to swallow with age: 

• You are not as great as you think you are. 

• You are not as horrible as you think you are.

Millenium truly was the best BSB album, tho

If I’m being honest, sometimes I forget about the Y2K scare.