“What are your concerns about your face?”
I’m in Katie O’Brien’s brightly lit office at Renascence Aesthetic Dermatology on Belmont Street. Katie is down-to-earth and welcoming, but I still feel nervous and exposed.
I have a lot of concerns about my face, one of those being my concern over having concerns. Is it vain that I track its changing landscape, from the gradually deepening forehead lines to the sudden scar on my chin after surgery to remove a skin cancer?
“I hate my age spots,” I start with. “Especially the one in the middle of my forehead.”
Katie carefully examines what I learn are seborrheic keratoses. She can freeze these off with liquid nitrogen right now for a modest price. The idea of walking out of there and leaving behind the nagging embarrassment of these dark spots is intoxicating, so I press further.
What about my darkening under-eye circles? And my sagging cheeks? Now Katie explains all kinds of treatments I’ve never even heard of, like an injectable collagen stimulator that gradually plumps the cheeks over several weeks. She can even take my blood, spin it in her centrifuge, and inject a serum under my eyes made of my own platelets.
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Apparently, visible aging is a choice. I take a moment to imagine myself, but fresher (and several thousand dollars poorer).
Investing in my face makes sense. As a Generation X woman, I see how women are less valued as they age. Even the brilliant filmmaker Nora Ephron called her memoir “I Feel Bad About My Neck.”How can I justify spending time and money to look younger, but on the other hand, how can I not? So Katie’s question about what my concerns with my face are has a long and complicated answer.
When my friends and I talk about aging, more than feeling sexy or desirable, we want to be respected at work. My friend Jill recently started an office job after freelancing since her kids were born, and she’s worried that her younger colleagues take her less seriously. My friend Sarah also started a new job last year, and she is much older than the team she supervises. “Sometimes I look in the mirror and think, who is that old woman?” I published my first novel after the age of 50, and I felt pressure at appearances and on social media to look conventionally attractive (also known as youthful) to potential readers. I don’t like that I do this, but I also don’t like that society expects it of me.
In the end, Katie freezes about a dozen of my age spots. It stings, and over the next two weeks, they scab over before the crusts peel off to reveal smooth pink skin. No one notices but me, and I get some strange looks when I explain the scabs along my forehead and hairline that nobody asked about.
In a final ironic twist, after Katie scrapes off a mole under my left eye, a whole new problem is exposed. It’s now apparent that I have a basal cell carcinoma right under where the mole used to be, the same kind of skin cancer I had removed from my chin through a long and painful Mohs surgery. A woman plans for smooth skin; the universe laughs.
I’m still on a journey with my face and, if I’m lucky, I’ll get many more wrinkles and chin hairs. I don’t think there are any right and wrong answers to how people handle the aging process in our society. I’m happy I had the age spots removed, but I’m also content not to inject my undereyes with platelets. So my general rule from now on: pluck the chin hairs, leave the wrinkles. I can look strong, stylish, vigorous and intelligent without looking younger.
Jessica Barnard has lived in Belmont since 2010 with her husband and two children. She is an administrator at Harvard University, a writer, and a Town Meeting member. Her website is jessicaclembarnard.com.
