We’re all just wandering around in search of our own reflection. A familiar face amongst the foreign domain that we’ve found ourselves in. A temptress mirror; a subtle glance in a neighbouring window; possibly a warped likeness in a utensil or two. Since recently hitting a quarter of a century, the person who peers back at me has developed a few unfamiliar crevices. Maybe they’ve been there all along and only once I hit my first ‘scary age’ did I start paying them their due attention. Sweet and loveable names have been given to the lines that settle into our aging visages, such as the “crow’s feet” that form beside our eyes from either years of laughter or a refusal to admit that our eyes age too and its finally time for those much-needed spectacles. The grooves that have been bothering me are the fellow victim of too much insatiable grinning.
I think I’m obsessed with my own face. I’m not particularly overjoyed by what stares back at me, but I have a compulsive need to smile like a madman or stick my stupid tongue out whenever I unexpectedly come across my reflection. As a result of all this garishness, lines have begun to appear on either side of my mouth. I started noticing these markings prior to my twenty-fifth birthday, but only when I stood beneath unfortunate overhead lighting. These baby wrinkles are often referred to as “smile lines”, which is a pleasant expression and would be considered signs of a well-enjoyed life. However, since turning twenty-five, I’ve started to notice indentations that begin by the sides of my nose and fall into said “smile lines”. These new additions to my face create a drooping appearance, not like one has enjoyed a life of smiles and cheers, but as if either side of my face is being weighed down by all the misery in the world. Unfortunately, these lines have fallen short of a cute and appealing name, meaning I must become comfortable with the fact that I now own a pair of “Nasal Labia”.
I have decided to take precautionary measures to inhibit the growth of said face vagina. Supposedly these lines form when the elasticity in your face slowly tightens, which sadly happens with age; this fact confuses me as you’d think that many years of buffoonery in front of a mirror has made my face limber and stretchy. So, each morning, I tap and prod the skin between my mouth and nose, followed by moving a pocketful of air from cheek to cheek. Intensive research has also taught me that vitamin c reduces the signs of aging, so I’ll engulf a tangerine whenever I see one lying around, or pop in a multivitamin tablet when the oranges at my disposal are covered by too much of that mysterious white vein-like hair. I must make it clear that I have no problem with aging. The crinkles and folds that appear as we mature prove to those that you are newly meeting that you are expressive and up for a laugh or two, without even having to display evidence of your winning personality. My issue is that when this so-called ‘nasal labia’ becomes increasingly apparent in the years to come – as I’m assuming clementine segments will only slow down the aging process by a couple of years at most – I'll be left with a resting stink face due to the drooping of my formerly plump cheeks.
Entering my twenty-fifth year meant it was also a new Calendar year, and the world’s inhabitants continue to overuse the phrase “new year, new me”. I don’t think the current version of myself is substandard enough to merit an entire transformation, but there are areas that could do with some adjustments. The main area of my being that needs some tailoring, is the pedestal I put the rest of the world on. That sounds dramatic, I basically mean that I feel out of sync with the schedule of the rest of humanity. In the period after I moved back to the UK from Paris, I was essentially waiting for my life to restart. Navigating each day without some sort of structure is difficult, especially if you’re at all an anxious person. My life over these five months was solely spent refreshing my emails, and that is said with no exaggeration. I was permanently in a state of discomfort as I awaited a response that would take the sender approximately two-minutes to think up. Unlike the rest of my inner circle, I had been pretty much unemployed since my return to the motherland after a year spent au pairing in Paris. Sure, there’d been sporadic periods of work or zero-hour placements to fill the void during my search for something more concrete. Since moving to Manchester, I’d signed onto the books of various recruitment companies. One was your classic hospitality company that provides eager and desperate youths with work at various establishments or events. I only ended up completing two shifts for this agency, the second and final was at an arena during Peter Kay’s comeback tour.
As it had been years since his previous tour, the crowd were very enthusiastic, and all seemed to resemble the comedian either in the looks or cockiness department. As it was my first shift at the venue, my role was to continuously pour pints of lager for impatient swarms of fans that crowded our bar. The beer spouts I used were unlike the ones I’d become accustomed to over my many years in the hospitality world. There was no trick to securing the perfect frothy head, rather you placed the glass under the steal nozzle, pressed a button, and hoped for the best. As to be assumed, gassy froth filled the glass, alongside a dribble of beer. Suddenly, I found myself being jeered at by bloated audience members practicing their heckling. “She can’t even pour a pint” one said. “Hey it’s the spouts, not me!” I jested back, forgetting I was around a new bunch of colleagues who silently obeyed the customers’ every waking wish. This group of customers awoke a similar memory from five years prior, when I was working at a popular craft beer bar in Cambridge. During this period, I was often humorously asked by friends of my parents if my young female colleagues and I would get hit on by eligible bachelors whilst working behind the bar. I’d respond similarly each time, explaining that it was only pissed-up locals or the city’s loners who would try their hand at some light flirtation, or it was experiences like the following. I was working a busy shift around the Christmas holidays, when a group of men waltzed in. Similarly, each vaguely resembled Peter Kay in build, and each sported a scratchy strawberry-blonde beard and a flashing Santa Claus jumper. I was beginning to pour one of them a pint, when I noticed him tap his mate and gesture towards me. I peered up to try and get wind of what was being said. In my egotistical nineteen-year mind, I believed he must have been pointing out my youthful beauty, so, I nonchalantly refined my features by sucking in my cheeks and slightly pouting my lips. As I began to finish pouring his pint, I was thudded back to earth when I saw the response from said gesturing. This gentleman was indeed pointing my way to see if his friend thought I was attractive, to which his fellow young Santa Claus lookalike made a face that could only be described as a grimace, and abruptly shook his head. I guess these types of males and myself are just never meant to be.
As the Peter Kay event progressed, my hands had lost most of their function due to the constant contact with overflowing icy beer, so, I switched with another barman and took to the tills. When working in large arenas, there is generally a rule in which all bottles must be plastic and without a lid before they are handed over to the customer - presumably many a drink has been lobbed at the stage resulting in a concussed performer. As to be assumed, the customers frequently whinged when it came to this rule. Towards the end of the evening, I was serving a middle-aged woman who declared to me that she had a problem with her balance. I considered starting up some light banter and asking if she was wobbly as she’d had one-too-many wines, but quickly changed my mind after realising she had no patience for any form of tomfoolery. I began removing the lids of her bottles of mini rosé in plain sight, to which she began ardently contesting. “I’ll spill it when I walk down the stairs. I told you I have problems with my balance.” To avoid having to spend another moment in her wearing company, I walked over to my manager to see if we could make an exception, but of course, it was refused. I returned to my till and apologetically broke the news to the now scowling customer. “Right, well I’m going to fall down the stairs now and probably break my leg, aren’t I”, she informed me before swiftly departing. “Okay, enjoy the show!” I responded, with a smile, because good customer service is important.
During this period, my lack of work and lack of emails to respond to left me in a state of perpetual ennui. I was in the privileged position of having endless hours of free time yet felt like a loser because of all these empty hours that were available to me...queue the tiny violins. I’d spend these spare moments making myself look presentable each time I'd have a friend date. I’d be sat there feeling pathetic with my precise black eyeliner and hair in ribbons, awaiting a justified mocking by said friend wearing tracksuit bottoms and hair thrown back in a careless manner - as that day's work grind provided no free moment to put on a bit of rouge. I’d have plentiful time to paint a birthday card for my host kid back in Paris yet had to seek acknowledgement and gratitude for my generous gesture as, once again, the world and his wife was too busy to send the letters ‘t’ and ‘y’ accompanied by potentially an ‘x’. Things got pretty wild for me when I began tracking how many cups of tea that I’d had that day. “If I have a third cup of tea, I’ll only be reaffirming what my dentist said about my hideously stained set of gnashers,” I’d think, “...but it’s twenty minutes until 6pm, which means mum might suggest we open a bottle of wine, so maybe I’ll just stick to the two brews today.”
So, after decorating my hair, illustrating birthday mail, and tallying up my day’s caffeine intake, the only conceivable thing for me to do was to study my face for new wrinkles. As my emerging nasal labia is the only thing I notice when looking at a switched-off television or glancing at myself in my mum’s car wing mirror, I’ve begun searching for similar markings on the faces of passers-by. I normally study the mouth areas of the public when I’m sat on the tube, but I’ve come to realise that I must look like I’m gazing longingly at the lips of everyone on their daily commute. I’m unsure what I’m searching for in the faces of my fellow rovers, as I don’t feel like a faint line beside the mouth and nose of a stranger will satisfy my urge. Maybe it’s familiarity I’m seeking in this lonesome world that I’m coexisting in, but if that’s the case I’m sure there’s a spoon or a knife lying around.
This Face of Mine
LOVE! I hope I’m responsible for a few of your lovely laughter lines because you’re certainly the reason for a few of mine❤️