On the advice of an interesting man who has been chatting me up over the past several weeks I have purchased two books with which to amuse myself on travel to and from Momentum. After running across men without number who don’t read, or who only read the funny pages (or Field and Stream) I’m so appreciative of the ones who always have a book open somewhere and who are willing to talk about it.

I just hope there isn’t a quiz when I get home.

Have you read these books? Will you give me the Cliff’s Notes version if I end up too busy to finish them on the trip?

Please advise.

Armed with a brand-new and quite powerful (at the time) digital camera, on my thirty-sixth birthday I took a self-portrait which even I, always my own worst critic, thought was very good. The camera had come bundled with an image editing program; with the zeal of the newly converted I clone-stamped the picture until nothing remained but smooth unblemished perfection.

Somehow time froze that portrait in my mind and I forgot that I never really looked so good. As months and years rolled on it bothered me more and more to come across myself in other pictures looking increasingly different from that wrinkle-free flat-faced woman. And time, any objective observer would agree, has not been particularly kind to my face. Sure I stay out of the sun and I’ve never smoked, but years of scowling in concentration at page and screen have cut lines into my forehead and around my mouth that no cream could ever lift, not to mention the round of drug-induced acne so horrifying that I will bear its scars for life.

I’m fine with the idea of gray hair. I’m cool with theoretical wrinkles. Even scars are all good — on someone else. But on me? On my own personal face and body? Not so much, because my mind has not quite caught up to the fact that I’m no longer thirty-six years old (or younger!), and when a thirty-six year old partner let slip that he’d always been attracted to older women it took me a moment to realize that I was a member of that group. But we’re the same age, I almost protested, before I realized that actually? We aren’t.

So strong has this cognitive dissonance been that my presence in a picture almost guaranteed that shot’s deletion. You’d be appalled to know the ratio of images of just my children compared to images of my children with me. I know this is tragic, and that one day they’ll marvel at their mother’s reticence in this matter¹. But recently I found myself in a situation where I could not reasonably decline to produce a photo. While in DC for Momentum later this week I’m lunching with someone whose acquaintance I made back in the early days of blogging². “I looked on your Facebook and there’s not a single current shot of you!” she said last week. “You’d better send one so I’ll know who to look for.” Not to mention that while at Momentum I’ll be face to face with dozens upon dozens of Actual! Human! Beings! Who will be Looking! At! Me! And possibly judging, or marveling at my lack of style, or too-round midsection, or unfashionable shoes, or lack of competently-applied makeup. This, my friends, is cause for the most extreme levels of anxiety. The very most extreme.

My head knows that nobody cares what I look like. People don’t hold in their minds a heavily-doctored image by which to make comparison; they are in fact most likely consumed by their own issues and insecurities. I know all this — and yet I am still in an agony of anxiety.

It’s times like these I wished I drank more. This is a talent that I should possibly cultivate. How much easier would things be if in social situations I could buoy myself up with a very large cup brimming with wine? “What are you drinking,” they’d ask. I’d smile beatifically from within my cloud of alcohol-fortified peace and answer without any agony at all, Just tea.

1. Is it odd to be camera shy and yet so unrestrained in other things? [↩]
2. Before the invention of the wheel, or WordPress [↩]