Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Learning to Let Go

I've come to realize something as I get older...trying to be Barbie is fucking hard. A couple of things should have clued me in early on:

First, according to varying accounts, Barbie's height is somewhere between 5'9 1/2 and 7'2.  My height, according to varying accounts (or depending on which convenience store I'm racing out of), is somewhere between 4'11 5/8 and 5'2. Second, as I realized for the first time at age 27, and for the second time at age...um, around seven months ago - Barbie doesn't have kids: which is not surprising, considering she doesn't have a vagina, and a c-section scar would have marred that nauseatingly taut abdomen.

It's not that I didn't try.  I purchased the tatas in 2001, spent the better part of a decade streaking, highlighting, and flat-ironing the requisite blonde tresses, wore stilettos in varying heights, bronzed myself in increasingly high-tech beds, and (for a few years) resided in a gulf coast town.   I dated Nerdy Good Guy Ken, Rocker Ken, Rich Ken, and of course, a few Asshole Kens (which is amazing, considering the dolls I had growing up didn't have assholes OR weiners).

Then one night a couple years ago, my (then) two-year old was sitting on the toilet seat, watching me in awe as I put in colored contacts, applied false eyelashes, shaped my brows, and carefully prepped my lips with lip plumper in preparation for a date with (future husband) GI Joe.  As I spritzed on perfume and smoothed my hair, I asked my round-eyed little boy how I looked.  With a child's inevitable honesty, he replied "Just like Mrs. Potato Head!"
Sexy, huh.

Now (a few years, a marriage, and another child later), I've decided I'll have to let some things go.  For one thing, I've realized that unless I also intend to invest in Botox and chemical peels, the tanning is either going to have to come out of a bottle or I'm just gonna have to rock the pale skin (which is "ethereal" when it's a good day, and "wow, you look like you just got punched under both your eyes" when it isn't).  My four-year old wears my stilettos more often than I do (and come to think of it, his toes are painted more often as well).  I'm not enough of a Houdini to keep my 7-month old from pulling my false eyelashes off and eating them, so those are gathering dust as well.

I'm keeping the blonde and the boobs though.

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