All Black 

Have you ever lost yourself? Like you truly look in the mirror and are unfamiliar with the person staring back at you. Your eyes seem darker and sadder in a sense and the bags beneath them cannot be concealed by the cheap concealer stick that has made a home in your bottom bathroom drawer for the last few years. Your hair hangs in ways you never planned and certainly did not relay to the introverted stylist who like you does not enjoy casual conversation. Speaking of this hair it has lost its volume and began to thin on top, which seems universally unfair as a women barely scratching her late 30s. Fat, like the good pinch-able kind, has gathered in places you were unaware it would even like to stay and you now know due to low cardio levels and a sudden increase in juiciness you would make a delicious snack to that bear or shark you thought you were not afraid of until this momentous and confusing day. The dark spots on your cheeks that you were sure must be temporary have taken on a stark permanence that you did not mean to allow; however, the desire to stay on said cheek would always bump aside your inclusion of such spots. You are now at least two trends behind on eyebrow shape and realize that the continual baseline, uneven plucking you have done for twenty years will probably continue until your eyebrows migrate into your hairline or become a shade of gray that blends in with your paler then ever skin. 

 

Yet, here I am, moving from bedroom mirror to bathroom mirror hoping my skin care routine combined with my elementary level makeup routine will allow me to present as quasi human to all the beautiful people I am now forced to pass on the daily the moment I emerge from my home. I tap the various spots with that concealer I talked about, blend it in a way that it basically is removed from my face and offers no assistance. I smudge draw liner on my eyes and use my trusted mascara to give my dead eyes a joyful lift. I use a giant, probably not clean makeup brush to give my face a little bronzer vibe to trick the passerby's into thinking I just came back from the beaches of Ibiza. My hair is beyond help most days so I either pin it back and let the bangs due their job: hide my receding hair line and early 2000s eyebrows, or bury it all under an old hat that says “Be Kind.” If I am too many weeks removed from a dye job hiding my almost completely gray hair, then I will use my trusted Monoprix purchase of root dye spray to cover only the top grays on my head. I am careful with this spray as to not apply too much that if I get caught in the almost daily Paris rains then I will not end up looking like Giuliani at Four Seasons Garden Center. I have yet to learn what he looks like at the hotel of the same name. 

 

I dab a little deodorant on my pits and spray myself with some over priced designer perfume that was gifted to me because if you can’t look like a Parisian, at least you can smell like one, right? I sulk to my closet across the hall and decide if I should wear the same mostly black number I wore yesterday or try to be inventive with my Midwest mixed with California and sprinkled with a little gracious South goodness to amaze the Paris streets with my feeble attempts at “fashion.” You guessed right: black again. Why be different when you can just be predictable and safe screamed all the wannabe trendsetters of the world while eventually recognizing their complete inability to be cool even when they try very, very hard to be. It is raining outside, again, so I opt for the black boots that I wear 90% of the year here and yes, I already checked online. The brand does not make this style anymore which means when these ones bite the dust, I will be forced to completely change my wardrobe to compensate for the loss of my signature boot style. I am already depressed thinking of that day in the future. 

 

Soon I will stumble into the kitchen, grab my crossbody bag which I was in fact wearing before they were cool and am still wearing now that they are not cool anymore. I am nothing if not stuck in a certain trend. I do still own one pair of black skinny jeans and I will never let them go in all their faded glory. They were good to me for much of my post third baby years with their magical high rise selves that I could never do them dirty by tossing them aside since their family members are no longer aloud on the shelves of most stores. If you are good to me, I will probably keep you around albeit I am sure to forget about you and place you in a cold, dark environment for a bit until my memory serves me better. I believe the young people call that “leave you on read” and I want to take the next sentence to say I am sorry to all those I have left on read, but also remember, I did change my number when moving overseas so it could be I just never actually received your message and that left on read was nobody’s fault but the Atlantic Ocean*, so can we agree to blame that selfish bitch. She has not been kind to anyone since the 1600s; she is sure to not give a damn about little old me. 

 

So here we are, my 38 year old self, dressed in all black: some might say its a symbolic statement about attending my own funeral. RIP cool Ruby, blah blah blah. Your life will now be a spectrum of black clothing as the hard water of the city always fades your darks. Early mornings, catch me in my all black exercise clothes. Late afternoon, find me in my all black day to day clothes with a little black eyeline smudge to match. On truly magical days, spot me in my all black roller blade gear in some random patch of hidden pavement living the best version of myself. I understand now why people dress up for ComicCon or in some ways for those specific role play battles in the fields of Virginia. When I wear my roller blades, I become Ruby 2.0. She’s cool. She coordinated. She dances in public. She rolls around town, literally. Mostly, she hopes to god she will not see anyone she actually knows in this small but large city. She is truly alive. She is not the same woman staring back at me right now in the mirror. She has found herself even if its just for an hour on a random sunny Tuesday. Roller Ruby is free. 

 

But for now, its back to version of Ruby who is pinching fat and plucking eyebrows and forever ready for a funeral in these streets full of colorful people. Cheers to more days of Ruby 2.0.

 

*Sorry Atlantic Ocean. In a moment of weakness I called you out of your name. You are majestic and glorious and oddly warmer then that other big ocean especially off the coast of North Carolina in August. You deserve to be treated nicely and not filled with trash and fuel spills and crashed airplanes.