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Butt Butts, Tapioca Bellies and Melasma

Middle age isn't for wimps.

When I look in the mirror backwards, (and no, JL, I do NOT do this when I'm just a day or two away from my period-you're totally right in your urging me NOT to add to the emotions already violently careening with additional 'oh crap-ness'...), I'm amazed at how gravity works.

I've always had a bubble butt. It's how God made me. When I was little, and all of my flat bottomed friends fit nicely into Ditto jeans (or cords), I looked on, envious, and knowing that my hips and those pants would never enjoy one another's company. I have a relatively tiny waist, which means...hard to fit.

Anyway, as the bubble butt ages, it assumes some annoying habits. Like visibly succumbing to gravity much more quickly than it used to. I have to work out a lot more to keep it suspended, I'm just sayin, and that gets stressful at times. In spite of my best intentions, now that I've undertaken the whole school on top of career thing, sometimes I don't have the time for a good workout. I do try to walk the stairs at least twice a week (20x up and down 3 flights), which helps, but wowza..a little slacking, and things start to go South in a hurry.

Case in point? The butt butt.

What is this butt butt of which I speak? It's the weird little bumpy thing that forms beneath the normal butt. And it's annoying. Because, wow, is it not enough to have to work on the suspension of the original butt without having now to consider all out war against/prevention of its dreaded progeny, the butt butt?

Apparently I'm not alone. My very fit, very beautiful daughter faces this as well.  She said, 'Mom, let's face it. Our butts are our best features, but they have minds of their own and we always have to be vigilant. Seems unfair, but it is what it is.'

Ok, honey, you're right.

But what about (and this is NOT something daughter, the proud owner of a smokin' hot 6 pack, has to worry about yet) the dreaded tapioca belly?

I'm fortunate to only face this monster once a month, usually within 2 days of my period and until maybe the 3rd or 4th day. But I am NOT a fan of this beast. You can't suck it in. And it..just sits there, in all its tapioca-ness mocking even the most rigorous ab routines (which I don't, admittedly, always employ). My friend KS is also in the 'We hate tapioca bellies' club. Her solution, during swim suit season (where she normally wears bikinis, as do I), is to wear Daisy Dukes in lieu of the bikini bottom, which tends to squoosh in mid-belly and make that stupid poof spill over and look aw.ful.

And, the ultimate insult to middle age injury is the whole skin pigmentation thing. Really? Turns out when you're of Middle Eastern/Northern European origin, as I am, it tends to be worse. Because melanin, which is a good thing, never quite figures out its role in the whole skin thing, and tends to congregate along the outer jawbone more than ever. And if you're me, you've had freckles your entire life, which is simply another manifestation of confused melanin.

To this mix add some hormonal fluctuations and you've got the perfect storm for blotchy skin. Awe.some. And, per the esthetician who performed my facial the other day, any product that you find to fade the spots might work temporarily, but won't last forever. The spots will return. Even if you go the laser route, it seems. This surprised me.

So as this wonderful esthetician was working her magic, massaging lovely lotion into my aging face, I asked her what she would do. She said, 'Well, as long as hormones are at work, you're going to be fighting an ongoing battle. So if you ever just go, 'forget it, I'm tired of spending money on temporary fixes' and you decide to just give your skin room to be its bad self, it's ok.'

Alrighty then. Maybe when this bottle of Clinique's spot fader is exhausted I'll just not replace it, and see if I can live with the results. I already know they'll be a little darker than they are now, dreaded spots, but maybe I can live with that in the face of understanding that until I go through menopause, they're probably going to be prominent.

But the butt butt stuff? I'm fighting that battle til I leave this planet.

Just sayin.'

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