Oh, how often I have said those words to myself. I love to make New Year’s resolutions because it gives me the ambition and inspiration that I need to make changes. Sometimes I wind up neglecting certain resolutions after a few weeks, but I consider a little bit of improvement better than none at all.
My resolutions always vary slightly from year to year, but mostly the list includes a desire to exercise more, get up earlier, be tidier, finish up neglected projects, participate in more charity work, and to drink more water.
This year, however, I decided to add another one: self care. I stay so busy between working and mothering and friending and all the other things that I often forget to take care of myself. I typically put myself last on the attention totem pole. So in 2019 I decided to make it a point to practice more self care: more rest, more me time, more down time.
I taped my resolution list to the refrigerator and read through it again. I thought to myself I’m going to start right this very minute. I have to clean, but I can certainly do that with a face mask on. I headed straight upstairs to my bathroom and rifled through the drawer where I keep all of my extra makeup and toiletries. I sifted through the different types of masks. I had accumulated quite a large number of them from all of the different beauty boxes I subscribed to.
“Gosh, I didn’t realize how many of these I had,” I said to myself. I couldn’t make up my mind on which to choose so I just closed my eyes and reached in and selected a mask at random. I opened my eyes to inspect the mask I had picked up.
“Radiant Glow Pink Himalayan Clay. Hmm… this one sounds perfect.”
I applied the mask, which turned out to be a pale pink, almost skin colored slimy substance, and then resumed my cleaning routine.
“Mom? What’s wrong with your face?” I heard Raff exclaim a few minutes later. I looked up from my mop. I probably did look pretty scary.
“It’s just a face mask, Raff. I’ll take it off in a few minutes; it’s supposed to stay on for a while,” I assured him.
He slinked around me warily — not taking his eyes off my face — grabbed a bag of chips and a Capri Sun then slinked back by and ran up the stairs to his room.
“Boys,” I sighed as I rolled my eyes and continued mopping.
About 20 minutes later, my face was feeling really tight. I figured the pink clay had dried out, so I headed upstairs to remove the mask.
When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I realized the mask had become shiny and solid looking. I gingerly touched my face, and was surprised that it was rubbery and completely dry. I scrambled to dig the empty packet out of the trash, and no where on it did it disclose that the “Radiant Glow Pink Himalayan Clay” mask was a peel off mask! I had smeared the entire contents all over my face, including my eyebrows. For those of you that aren’t familiar with peel off masks, they are about like covering your face with epilating wax that must be removed by literally peeling it from your face and in the process removing lots of unwanted facial hair. All of this is extremely inconvenient if you have also applied the mask to your brows.
I immediately turned on the shower, thinking the warm water and steam might allow the mask to be washed off. 20 minutes later, the mask was still firmly in place. I realized I was just going to have to peel it off.
I started on the bottom, right below my chin. I yanked gently and the mask peeled away, up to my bottom lip.
That wasn’t so bad. I yanked gently again, removing it from my lower cheeks and upper lip.
“Holy Moly! Yes, this is bad,” I said out loud.
Over the next five minutes, I was able to get the mask off my cheeks and off the bridge of my nose. I was just getting started on carefully removing it from my brows, working from the top now, when Raff walked into the bathroom.
“Mom! What are you doing?” He said, with a horrified look on his face.
“I’m trying to get this off,” I replied, as I swung around to look at him with the peeled off part of the mask dangling in front of my face. I realized I was panting and sweaty from the stress of having no eyebrows.
“Ow!” I yipped as I managed to set free the upper half of my brows.
“Here, let me help you,” Raff said. Before I could stop him, he reached out and grabbed the dangling part of the mask and gave it a hard yank!
“NO — Well, too late now,” I said. I was afraid to look in the mirror.
“See, that’s all you had to do!” Raff said cheerfully. He turned and went back into his bedroom with an accomplished look on his face.
I braced myself for the worst as I looked into the mirror.
“Well, I’ll just have to start 2019 off with really thin eyebrows, but at least I still have some there,” I said to myself with relief.
A few minutes later I heard the phone ring and before I could get to it Raff answered it.
“Oh hi, Nana… yeah I’m having a good new year…. what’s a resolution? … oh, well no I didn’t set any but my mom did I think. I heard her saying this morning ‘a new year and a new me’ and then she ripped her old face off and has a new one now…. yes I’m sure…. well I don’t know but even though it’s a new year, I’ll keep my old face.”
I rolled my eyes. “Boys,” I said with a sigh.
