Yesterday I got Botox.
I know. I know.
For the record, I have spent years being genuinely unbothered by the concept. Not in a performative way — I truly, authentically did not care. Wrinkles happen. Bodies age. Moving on.
And then my husband Dan offered to pay for it as a birthday gift, and I said yes with an enthusiasm that surprised me.
When I told some in my family, the duckknuckles applauded when they heard! I am choosing not to examine what that means.
I will say this: it was not the horror show I had imagined. I had braced myself for something biblical — a gauntlet of needles and blood and me weeping dramatically in a medical chair while a nurse quietly questioned her career choices.
What I got instead was three or four moments that felt exactly like a sweat bee sting. I barely flinched.
The drama, it turns out, was entirely mine. The procedure had no interest in participating.
Tomorrow I turn 58, and I want to say that slowly: I get to turn 58. That is not nothing. That is evidence. That is a record of surviving things that were genuinely trying to kill me — and a few I was trying to use to kill myself. I did not make it through all of that to stand in front of a mirror, live in denial, and pretend I am perpetually 27. That would be its own kind of lie.
I believe in growing old authentically. I believe age is an honor, not a number.
And yet.
My friend Daphne said in response to my Botox adventure, and I love her for it because she holds the contradiction without flinching:
The cultural expectations are horrible, especially on women — but also, who wants to be wrinkly.
She doesn’t pick a lane. She doesn’t plant a flag. She just lets both things be true and lives in the tension like the elegant chaos agent she is. That is one of the reasons I love Daphne.
The jury is still out on my personal use of Botox. Ask me in two weeks. But I’m glad I did it — not because of what it might do to my face, but because the older I get, the less interested I am in pretending I’m above anything.
I’m not above Botox. I’m not above wanting to feel good in the mirror. I’m 58 years worth of not above it.
And I barely flinched.
Tomorrow I’ll eat cake, play in the backyard with Gigi and Eli, and feel very, very grateful. If you want to wish me a happy birthday, the comments are right there. And if you’re holding your own contradictions today — the ones that don’t resolve neatly — you’re in good company.
If this found you at the right time, pass it along to someone who might need it.
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