It finally happened—my Botox got botched. My left eyebrow dropped so far that I can literally see the skin of my upper lid out of the corner of my eye. The good news is I will only look like a Basset Hound until it wears off in about three months.
But all the injectables and age-fighting tools we have out there are a bit of a Pandora’s Box. It can only go so far before it catches up with you or distorts you so much you end up looking like some kind of Marvel Comic version of yourself. Let’s be honest: We’ve all seen her walking down Mill Street after yoga, wandering down Mill Street in her perfectly coordinated athleisure worn with cowboy boots, her face so plump it looks almost like it’s been filled with air.
As I approach my mid-50s, I find myself talking with friends a lot about “how much is too much?” It’s easy to understand the expectation to maintain flawlessness into late middle age when I see celebrities my age and older, women like Nicole Kidman, 57, Demi Moore 60, and J Lo, 55 whose faces are not only frozen in time but looked buffed out and shiny, like a patent leather shoe. The price tag for the routine medical grade care required to achieve kind of ageless beauty likely runs into tens of thousands of dollars in maintenance every month. Yes, this is a rich woman’s game.
That’s one of the reasons the standard for fitness and beauty are so high here in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, simply because so many people can afford the high price tag .
