SELF ANALYSIS: The Old Woman in The Mirror

I haven’t had the time to take a week or month or however long it takes to have a midlife crisis, but every now and then it hits me, so I’ve been doing it in dribs and drabs. Perhaps it should just be entered on my to-do list, and then I’d get around to and over it.

This weekend I’ve been a little testy, to say the least. If I look in the mirror, it only makes matters worse. I’m not in there, or at least I’d like to deny that she is me. Looks never bothered me, except to not appear bedraggled or downright ugly—and I’ve had some pretty ugly days even when youth was on my side.

This morning I opened the drawer and pulled out the scissors, intent on cutting my hair some more. This I do usually just to set some sense of balance and control over my life, but I had just cut it last week, and really couldn’t go much shorter if I want it to grow long enough to pin up in the summer. I’ve already gone too far with the blonding. But that’s not totally my fault; after many years of using Clairol’s Accent for highlighting, they of course discontinued it. In trying other products, I am now almost totally bleached blonde because they don’t work the same way. Maybe I’ll just get a darker haircolor, but last time I did that I turned out looking like a blue spruce.

It’s all just a matter of not feeling pretty. I never felt I was, but then youth gives a confidence that overrides any physical attributes, especially when in the company of the opposite sex. My husband always tells me I’m pretty—unsolicited by me, and totally sweet and thoughtful. And I believe he really feels that I am. But I just don’t feel it lately, and yes, it’s a feeling more than anything else. Never one to put much effort into appearance, if I remember to wear perfume at all it’s Royall Spice, which is a man’s aftershave that I love because it smells like those cinnamony-spicey red Indian nickel candies that used to sell two for a penny. I remember walking into the old Malley’s department store in New Haven once to buy some perfume that a gentleman had given me that I liked. I asked for An-TE-lo-pa, attempting a French pronunciation. The saleswoman said, “Do you mean Antelope?” pronouncing it just as you would call one of those quadrupeds that play with the deer where the buffalo roam.

Well, I’ve dumped my depression here, so I do feel somewhat better already. I’ll get over this and go on happily until the next time I glance in a mirror to see an old woman watching me. I don’t know what she wants, but I don’t think I’m going to listen to her.