You Look Tired

I know.

I was maybe 28 or 29 when a specific colleague would routinely greet me in the office with a hello or goodnight in the hallway, always followed by, “You look tired.”

“Um… I know?”

“You look tired.” How is this an acceptable salutation?

He was likely leaving the office for the day, while I was going to get another cup of coffee for a late-night edit session, but there’s no way his comment was a recognition of my hard work. It’s possible I looked tired because my high school insomnia was rearing its ugly head again. Or I had too much to drink the night before, and the night before that. Perhaps I was crying? Allergies?

Any of those things aside, I always look tired. I have bags under my eyes. They are the bane of my existence, and they keep getting worse. And clearly, people were noticing.

I didn’t need a reminder in the hallway or elevator at work. I needed sunglasses. Or a plastic surgeon. At 29!?

Name an eye cream, I’ve tried it. Ice cubes, cucumbers, tea bags, face masks. They may help the average Joe, but not Jaimee. I’ve wrestled with puffy eyes since I can remember. As a skinny teenager, staring in the mirror, blotting concealer to disguise my bloated eyes, my friend said, “Why are you drawing more attention to it?”

The thing is, in any 1:1 interaction, you’re looking at my eyes and see someone overworked, unhealthy, sad, or aging rapidly, before we’ve talked about the weather. All because of my eyes. It wasn’t always and every day when I was younger, but it became more frequent and triggered more easily by each of the things listed above and more. Salt, dairy. What’s next? Fun?

I’m convinced this was how it started…

In middle school, my family went to South Florida for my grandfather’s retirement party. With my peers, the trip felt special, something to brag about. When the popular girls went on vacation, they returned sun-kissed with braided hair. I wanted to look like them, and this was my chance.

On the beach, I lied to my mother. “Did you put on sunscreen?” Yes, Mom.

I ignored my aunt’s warning, “You can use baby oil in New Jersey, but not in Miami. The sun is stronger here.”

I was counting on it. I was destined to return with a tan.

Or sun-poisoning.

By the time we showered for dinner, I could feel my skin burning up. My little sister Aja and I were sharing a twin bed in the hotel room. I was up all night; anytime my skin touched hers, a burning sensation would wake me. The next morning… blisters, bubbles, oozing head to toe. My face was bloated, my brown eyes barely visible through swollen eyelids, top and bottom. I looked like the losing corner of a prize fight the morning after. Everything hurt. Smearing aloe on my skin hurt. Eating hurt, my clothes hurt. And now we had to fly home. Back to school.

“What the hell happened to you?” “That’s never happened to me before from a sunburn.” Boys I liked looked at me with pity. Girls walked the other way. Behind my back, I am sure they all poked fun. As I healed, my skin was two-toned for weeks. I had given myself a chemical peel at the age of 12.

If I just wore sunscreen, would I have as sensitive, as damaged, or as prematurely aged skin today? God damn it Jaimee. You didn’t even get your hair braided.

(Me on the left… before the burn set in. We didn’t take any “after” pictures. Those socks tho…)

Still, why is it socially acceptable to tell someone they look tired? It’s an insult veiled by sympathy.

My other favorite is “Have you lost, like, a lot of weight?” The “like” is especially important here because they’ve decided to pause with a filler word, to soften the blow, before the right hook. Jesus Christ, tell me exactly what my before-pic looks like in your head.

I’ve done Botox, fillers, exercises, and even plastic surgery. I’ve tried allergy tests, elimination diets, drank excessive amounts of water, and limited my intake at night. I sleep on my right side because my left eye is significantly worse than my right. I tried silicone patches for 4 years, but stopped due to the cost. I waited three weeks for a Regena Light infrared light mask to ship from lord knows what country (Korea). I added a neck mask to the cart since I’ve added crepey skin below the chin to my list of aging insecurities.

I’m tired of trying to fix the problem, but it’s all I see when I look in the mirror.

As a writer, I’ve been wanting to dive deeper into one topic vs writing personal essays on many. I’ve been searching for my lens for a long time, and I didn’t have to look past my nose.

I recently attended a memoir webinar hosted by The HerStories Project and writer Liz Alterman to help poke the bear. This is something I’ve put on the back burner for 20+ years. I was either too busy trying to mold my career in television, or I was too insecure that my story wasn’t worthy of an audience. (For mid-life women, experienced writers, or new, I highly recommend HerStories. The organizers and the participants are positive, caring, and supportive. They keep me coming back, and more importantly, writing.)

During the session, Liz included the concept that a memoir is both a mirror and a window. While the writing is a reflection of the author, it is also a narrative exploration of a larger worldview.

And that night, it hit me. As I read my book in bed¹, and began to tuck myself in (on my right side), I was hit with a slew of chapter ideas based around my lifelong looking glass, especially as I age. So, I plan to discover where the luggage under my eyes will take me and the newly set creases in my skin. You Look Tired will explore the writing process, the pressures of aging, the demands we place on ourselves, ridiculous beauty experiments, and hell, maybe professional boundaries. Because the next time someone tells me You Look Tired, I’m going to spit out way too much information about the years and years (46 today!) of love, loss, chaos, experience and adventure that made me look so damn tired.

(Make-up free at 46! The eyes aren’t terrible today. Must be the red light therapy :/ )

1. Currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez