I was about to call this blog post, “I did a thing” and then I remembered that caption is usually “we did a thing”, coupled with an engagement or elopement photo or a gender reveal. I am not a “we”, I am an “I” and the thing I did is exactly the kind of thing that an “I” would do. Seeing as you clicked on this blog post, you already know that I decided to spend a few hundred dollars to have the fountain of youth injected into my face. It takes up to two weeks to see the full effects. I’ve been looking at myself on Zoom calls more than usual, scowling or looking excited about nothing, just to check if it’s working yet.

I was opposed to pre-age 40 Botox, like I was above it because I couldn’t possibly stoop to the lows of unfair image ideals and the devastating pressures women put on themselves to look flawless. What’s next, fillers and cellulite treatments and laser hair removal? Because I’d love to get all of that too, please. Sign me up. Maybe it’s because I live in the epicenter of beautiful people and mourn my twenties every time I find a new gray hair on my head. Living out my flannel-diaries in Seattle, Botox or having any kind of “work” done felt like something I’d only consider decades into the future, once gravity and I truly finished duking it out and I accepted defeat- looking into the mirror one day, studying every droopy bit as if looking into a funhouse mirror. Whelp, Marina, you are here- your thirties- where you age gracefully despite losing small battles with gravity and you crave control over all that money can fix. 

The day before I had “it” done, I was telling this cute little white lie about why I wanted Botox. It’s embarrassing to admit I still feel like I have to explain some of my choices to people I hardly know. “Ya know, I get these headaches- it’s all that Covid-era screentime. Fingers crossed that Botox heals me!” 

Getting Botox was like ordering a cake over the phone. After enough morning sessions of face aerobics in the mirror and toxic social media scrolling, I formed an exaggerated thesis about the current state of my life and made a quick call, “Yes, hi, I’d like to get some Botox tomorrow? 1pm? Great, thanks so much.”

My 11’s were deep canals between my eyebrows - those are the two lines between your eyes that appear when you squint. I kept making these funny faces at myself for the rest of the day, validating my buying decisions. Now that everyone is ditching masks post-pandemic, it only makes sense that we would spend hundreds to put our best face forward, literally.  But still, Botox seems like this taboo thing that every beautiful person I know has been indulging in for years and I’m the last to lose my tox-virginity. 

Did I really need to go as far as freezing the muscles in my forehead to feel like I have control over something? Probably not. (But also, yes.) Will it make me wink at my reflection with a little extra “dammnnn girl” oomph? Hell yes.

Botox is somewhere towards the bottom of the jenga stack of things I wanted. The pieces on the bottom are the ones that aren’t easy to grab and aren’t the first ones you try to grab, but you get there eventually, once you’ve crossed off the easier parts of your to-do list and it’s time to confront the more wobbly pieces. The trouble with wanting too much all the time is that you become a kid holding all of her toys, refusing to put a single one down. My toys have certainly evolved since my teenage materialism. Today’s toys look more like sensible shoes, luxury furniture, flexible work schedules and apparently, Botox. But then those toys we try to hold became grownup toys really quickly. Expensive ones, like time, love, success, stability and pride. And when those grownup toys become more cumbersome to carry all at once, you still have permission to make decisions that make you happy, without judgment and without needing to explain yourself in a blog post. I certainly have bigger battles to fight than my crows feet, but I like to say I work hard so that I can throw money at problems to make them go away and if I can pay to turn my face into the blank canvas it was before I sabotaged my skin with stress, poor sleep and dairy, I’ll quiet my shame for the five minutes it took to turn back time. Hell, maybe writing this post will inspire someone else to do that quietly frowned upon, somewhat-taboo thing they’ve been wanting to do for themselves. 

I’ll keep covering up my greys and inevitably be getting more Botox in a few months because while it’s probably a control thing for me, it’s also this lovely permission slip I’ve written for myself to judge my decisions a little less, explain myself a little less and live my damn life. With all my toys and my refusal to put down a single one. I’m not saying run out to go get injectables, or maybe do, if that’s what you’ve been wanting to do for yourself and you needed to see someone else jump off the high-dive first. There are bigger fish to fry and greater wars to fight than the ones we start with ourselves looking into mirrors or digging through Instagram. Do what you want to do, do nice things for yourself and don’t pause to worry about what it looks like. Those self imposed battles are between you and you and it’s a mini miracle when we hang a pretty white flag for ourselves and chin up against the daily triggers that tell us not to.