The New Me Is The Old Me

At age 50 I looked in the magnifying mirror and noticed a wrinkle in my chin cleft that looked like a capital H. I rushed to show my partner, Jill, who said, “It’s nothing.”. Two days later I caught her staring at my chin while we discussed dinner plans. “You should never have told me about that capital H!”. We joked that maybe an “I” wrinkle would sprout up next to it and I could be perpetually friendly. “HI” my chin would say without me needing to speak.

Soon after the “H” discovery, I noticed my thigh skin was melting into my knee like an elephant’s legs. While bent over doing dead lifts, I saw my mother-in-law’s wrinkled knees where mine should have been. Applying eyeshadow, I had to use my left index finger to stretch my sagging eyelid to my temple while I smeared with my right hand. Changes were happening fast; I felt like a pubescent girl discovering breast buds and pubic hair, but my discovery was wrinkles and sags with an ominous undertone…DUM Dum dum.

The DUM Dum dum sounded loudly at age 60 when I found a radish size lump above my pubic bone. I touched and kneaded the lump, mulling over possible diagnoses. The mean part of my brain concluded it was ovarian cancer and my days were numbered. The logical part of my brain googled “lump pubic area female” and, after twenty minutes of sweaty hands and flushed face, found that the lump was likely not ovarian cancer but an inguinal hernia. I presented the lump to my doctor, who looked skeptical but touched the lump, told me to cough, and confirmed my diagnosis. “Fabulous. THANK YOU THANK YOU – I first thought I was dying of ovarian cancer!”.

Six months later I was lying on my back surrounded by curtains, bright lights, and beeping machines preparing for my first surgery. My mean brain was in overdrive as I lay waiting for the procedure. My greatest fear? Waking up during the procedure with a gaping incision, guts hanging out, and pain like I’d seen in barn surgery scenes on the gruesome Yellowstone series.

Like all mean brains, mine used kernels of truth to fuel my rising anxiety. I woke up during my last colonoscopy. I was lying on my left side with something in my butthole while the attending physicians conversed. After the surgery I told them, “I woke up during the procedure.” Silence. “I woke up during the procedure – I was on my side and you two were talking. It didn’t hurt but, geez, there was something in my butt.” The anesthesiologist responded with a vague acknowledgement and moved to the next topic. My fuzzy brain internally screamed, “I WOKE UP DURING MY COLONOSCOPY!!!!! Is this important information? Do we need to talk more about this?” I got dressed, went home, and moved on.

But now I was on a hard table with air-filled cuffs kneading my calves, purple nonslip socks on my feet, and an IV in my arm, talking to the anesthesiologist whose fresh face reminded me of my daughter’s friend. I said more than once, “I WOKE UP DURING MY LAST COLONOSCOPY!” She calmly assured me that she would be generous with her potions and would watch me closely. I tried to offer a funny comment about lack of décor in the sterile surgery room (don’t they take better care of you when you are funny and relatable?) and then BLANK. My next words were “Is it over?”

My hernia is repaired. I have a five-inch scar at my bikini line in purple, red, and chartreuse highlights. My pubic hair is shaved to just above my important parts. I took a hot shower and the glue holding my incision did not melt. My guts have not leaked out. This morning I picked up my underwear from the floor. I took the trash out. I walked around the block.

I have a sense of pride that is odd and unexpected. I want to show strangers my scar and say,

“See what I did? See how tough I am? See the bruises and the long incision? See how I am walking and standing up straight?”

Mean brain reminds me that I am not tough and I was terrified and no one cares about my piddly surgery. Logical brain tells me maybe my sister and niece and daughters would like to see my scar. So I stand in the entryway of my sister’s house pulling my shorts down below what is comfortable for anyone, showing my scar while they look and say “Oh!” and I beam with pride.

Many evenings at 5:00 I watch my 89-year-old neighbor carefully walk down steps to the pond behind our houses where he thumps a red plastic tub of duck food and calls, “Quack, quack, quack!”. He sprinkles the brown pellets at the water’s edge then sits on a bench with his suspendered back to me, watching mallards and wood ducks waddle on the grass eating the food. I wait for him to go up those steps, planning what I will do if he falls – which part of the wooden fence would I jump over to get to him? Would I call 911 first? Would I shout and scream for help? And then he reaches the top step and gingerly walks over the steppingstones to his back door, disappearing from my watch.

Watching Rudy feed the ducks is like looking in a crystal ball. If I am lucky that will be me in twenty years, taking careful steps to the water’s edge calling “Quack, quack, quack”. Perhaps my younger neighbor will watch me and think how cute I am as I feed the ducks in my house dress and sensible shoes.

The next years will bring more depressing discoveries, I am sure; more moments of fear; more wrestling matches with my mean brain. The familiar field of my body will be a source of anxiety as wrinkles change the shape of my face, new aches arise, and I find lumps in unexpected places. Already I am measuring a full inch shorter than I did in my twenties. My hearing is rotten in the lower ranges, and my eyes see little black floaters when I stare at the blue sky or a white wall. Those adolescent days of trying to achieve a Texas suntan on my Scotch-Irish skin are coming back to haunt me as my hands, forearms, and face have brown spots and deep wrinkles.

I can no longer rely on my girl-next-door good looks to get second looks or undeserved work opportunities. While people might smile back at me, I can’t walk into a meeting, flash a smile, and know I own the room. There is some invisibility that comes after menopause. Maybe it is basic animal biology at play… the peacocks aren’t going to raise their feathers for the peafowl who stopped laying eggs.

And maybe the peafowl is a little relieved.

When I go to a bar with my wife I am not bothered by the cowboy on the next stool. In meetings I feel my words are taken more seriously than when I was a 40-year-old buxom blonde. I don’t worry as much about what I wear because people notice less. My new fashion goals are modest: be clean, comfortable, and not too frumpy.

How will I choose to age? How much money should I spend on creams and laser treatments and cosmetic surgeries? Do I keep grasping for physical beauty, knowing it will slip further and further from reach? Or am I secure enough to lean into aging with grace, foregoing the expense and confusion of trying to maintain youthfulness?

I feel sympathy for Hollywood stars who are scrutinized as they age. The world falls in love with their faces and they want to keep that love and admiration. And who can blame them? It’s as if fans become disappointed or even angry when stars show signs of aging. Some become addicted to plastic surgery. We may not notice the results, simply remarking on how beautiful she is at 70 (think Jane Fonda), or we may see a complete distortion of the person we once idolized (think Meg Ryan or Renee Zellweger).

The older faces I most admire are the ones with closed lip smiles framed by deep creases. The eyes that look into my soul and don’t flinch. The soft folds of skin hanging below the chin. There is a black and white photo of Ursula Le Guin that shows her leaning forward with gently crossed arms, a knowing smile stretched across her face. Her short silver hair is ruffled on her head. Her eyes are looking out, seeing clearly.

I no longer have a capitol H on my chin. It melted away just when I got used to having it there. I now sport sagging cheeks and fine lines above my upper lip. I apply expensive creams and try to keep my face out of the sun. But Botox injections and plastic surgery are not for me.

Unless, of course, my eyelids begin obstructing my vision. Eyelid lift surgery is covered by Medicare if it is medically necessary. I may be one of those seventy-year-old’s who looks surprised and alert with taut eyelids. Because that is one thing I will never let these wrinkles do – interfere with my ability to see outside of myself.

Five years ago, a 40-year-old mother of two who attended my church died of colon cancer. Natalie Cortez was a stellar human being. While receiving cancer treatment at MD Anderson, she spent her spare time advocating for access to health care, understanding that top notch treatment options were not available for all cancer patients. Natalie loved her husband and children ferociously. She fought hard for life, but cancer won before she could see her daughter turn into a beautiful teenager or before she could see her handsome son grow tall and muscular.

I recently had the privilege of laughing with Natalie’s fourteen-year-old daughter. When she smiles it’s as if her mother’s face is beaming through her.

We are all going to die. That is the one certainty that humankind shares. My mean brain and my logical brain agree on that fact. But right now I am here, seeing Natalie’s daughter start eighth grade and my own daughters launch into adulthood. And for that I am deeply grateful.

I am working on this new me that is the old me. I am quieting my mean brain so that I can focus on gratitude for the body that got me here. The tired, crinkly skin that holds it all together tells the world that I have lived life. The layered parentheses around my mouth inform the reader there is something more behind the smile. I want to feel that post-surgery pride of having survived. I want to lean forward with wisdom, looking out rather than in, celebrating the gift of these twilight years.

MerriLee Anderson is a psychologist and writer. She enjoys hearing others' stories and writing her own. MerriLee and her wife, Jill, live in Dallas, Texas.