I’m writing to you from a parallel universe. What is day? What is night? What is time? Am I even awake? I don’t know.
I’m sipping on coffee but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I’ve been listening to Lana Del Rey on repeat, which should give you a sense of my current mood. Something is bothering my eye. Is it a rogue lash? No, just a baby stye emerging from my lower eyelid.
I’ve just come out of an intense week of caring for a sick little one. High fever for five days, sleepless nights, two trips to the pediatrician's office… Thankfully my baby (who isn’t a baby anymore, he’d tell me) is on the mend, and his papa and I can breathe easy knowing he’s okay.
Do you know what this past week reminded me of? The newborn stage. Those first few weeks of feeling disconnected from the World Out There, of not knowing what day of the week it is… Of being so exhausted you don’t give a shit about your new hairstyle, which looks like you dumped your head in a grease collection bin at McDonald’s.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about obsessions, it’s that they serve a purpose. They exist to fill existential voids, to cure us from boredom, because we have unfinished business. But they’re also a survival mechanism.
Take this past week, for example. When you don’t have control over your child’s virus, and you have to let it run its course, and you’re exhausted and you barely leave your apartment, how do you survive? You could, of course, simply take each day as it comes, rest as much as you can, focus on the positive. But that’s not what I did. Sure, I did try resting, i.e. falling asleep on the couch with my mouth open while my child watched Ice Age. Those little pockets of rest kept me functional, but I needed more. Something to distract me. I turned to one of my pandemic coping mechanisms: skincare.
Over the past year I’ve been trying to break free from the hold the skincare industry has on my life and my wallet. I can’t remember the last time I bought something from Sephora1. I don’t use a ton of products anymore, because I’m over the whole nine-step routine with toners, serums, retinol, eye creams, overnight masks, etc. I don’t think pampering oneself is bad. I love a good face mask and depuffing eye patches. I like massaging my face. It feels nice and helps relieve the tension from all my jaw clenching. We’re just being sold so much shit and I don’t want the state of my complexion to influence my self-worth.
All this to say my private crusade against the skincare industry went up in flames this past week. I spent hours, and I mean HOURS on my phone, watching TikTok videos skincare influencers reposted to their Instagram for their geriatric millennial audience (I don’t have TikTok). My eyes, burning from sleep deprivation, were glued to the tiny screen in my hand as I watched girls with perfect skin apply vaseline to their faces to “lock in the good stuff.” The La Roche-Posay cicaplast balm seemed to be some sort of miracle product every influencer couldn’t live without. A 35-year old cosmetic company owner who didn’t have a single line on her forehead kept going on about French pharmacy products and a microcurrent device that “helped stimulate collagen production.” I googled the device. It cost $500. Never mind.
My next best option was to pick up that cicaplast balm at my local pharmacy. Yes, I thought. The Laroche-Posay cream will fix my current breakout and make my life better. Oh yeah, before I forget: I’ve been dealing with a breakout for the past couple of weeks, cystic acne included. What was the cause? My hormones? My mineral sunscreen? That glass of red wine I had back in March? The organic oils I proudly rub on my face, thinking I’ve finally found the answer by “going back to basics” with cold-pressed jojoba? The fact that I didn’t exfoliate anymore?
So I left my apartment for a nice little walk to Pharmaprix. The sun was out, how wonderful, so I wore my oversized diva sunglasses. For once I didn’t need a tuque because the weather was milder, but my hair was in such a state I had to wear one anyways. I enjoyed my fifteen-minute walk, Lana Del Rey blasting in my ears. I entered the pharmacy and went straight to the cosmetics aisle, hoping the lady at the cosmetics counter wouldn’t come over. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I was too tired. I just wanted the balm and to get out of there.
“Allo ma belle!” I heard an enthusiastic voice say. Shit. She found me.
“Allo!” I said, pausing Lana’s “High by the Beach” on my phone. At the end of the aisle stood the lady from the cosmetics counter, wearing a black blazer and black-rimmed frames.
“Je peux t’aider avec quelque chose?” I didn’t want help. But there were also two types of cicaplast balms and I didn’t know which one to choose.
“Well, I haven’t slept for a week.” I lowered my sunglasses, revealing the dark circles under my eyes.
The lady’s eyes grew wider. “Do you work night shifts?”
“No. My son is sick.” She gave me a sympathetic look only a fellow mother could give.
“How old is your baby?”
“Seven.”
“Mine is two,” she said, smiling. “I know how sleepless nights feel. What can I do for you?”
My resistance melted away. I told her I was out of moisturizer and that I was looking for the Laroche-Posay cicaplast thing. She rolled her eyes and asked me if I had been on TikTok. I cringed and confessed that I had been in a skincare Instagram spiral and needed someone to yank me out.
“I’ve got you,” she said. She told me she’d been working in the industry for over twenty years. We spent the next forty-five minutes talking. I rambled about the influencer videos, the “miracle” products, the K-beauty routines I thought I should try. The cicaplast balm was the equivalent of polysporin, she said. It was not a moisturizer. She examined my face and told me that the big breakout was hormonal since it was along my jawline.
“All you need to do is cleanse, moisturize, and exfoliate from time to time, because all that oil you put on your face clogged your pores a bit. You don’t have dry skin. You don’t need to add extra oil on it.” she said. “That’s all. And sunscreen, of course.”
I left the pharmacy with a moisturizer and a couple of freebies. I felt lighter, grounded even. I was no longer in the spiral thanks to the cosmetics counter lady’s patience and no bullshit talk. Sometimes it takes a mother to snap you back into reality.
See you in two weeks. I’m off to wash my hair.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate! This tired mom is going to the pharmacy over the weekend to buy discounted chocolate and maybe hide some chocolate eggs in the apartment? Depends on my energy. Also, there was a big ice storm here in Quebec and a lot of homes have been without power for a while now. And since I have a lot of Quebec-based readers, I hope you’re all okay, keeping warm and keeping safe.
Michelle xox
My last trip was 2 weeks ago but it was only to buy lip gloss because I was feeling sorry for myself. I hadn’t been in a long time and I’m definitely losing my VIB status. Those who know, know.
Merci Michelle ! J'ai bien aimé ! J'espère que Nasri va mieux. Le pauvre ! Toi, comment vas-tu ?
Joyeuses Pâques ou plutôt temps pascal à vous aussi.
Pardonne mon retard à commenter "The Parallel Universe". Je me sens toujours dans un univers parallèle depuis la dernière panne d'électricité ! Celle-ci a duré trois jours, c'est-à-dire de mercredi à samedi de la semaine dernière. Par la suite, toutes mes télécommunications sont restées mortes jusqu'à Dimanche de Pâques, en après-midi, comme si celles-ci étaient ressuscitées, sans mauvais jeu de mots. Il faudra que j'y vois pour l'ajout d'un téléphone cellulaire à mon forfait. Je n'en n'ai tjrs pas. J'imagine qu'il s'agirait d'un autre monde parallèle, c'est-à-dire de vivre sans téléphone cellulaire ! Je me fie à mes voisins pour les appels qui seraient urgents, en cas de panne ou d'interruption d'électricité. Par contre, lors de la dernière grande interruption dans mon voisinage, même certains d'entre eux n'avaient pas de connexion ou avaient de la difficulté à utiliser leur cellulaire, dépendant du fournisseur...
Eh bien Michelle, pour revenir à ton sujet, j'aurais bcp de choses à dire...Surtout d'après les recommendations d'une dermatologue il y a très longtemps, et l'utilisation de produits XL, photosensible, de La Roche-Posay. Ce sera pour une autre fois.
Vendredi, comme j'avais affaire à Gatineau et que j'avais besoin d'un nouvel écran solaire pour les mains et le corps (--nous sommes passés de la pluie verglaçante et du termps froid à du gros soleil et de la chaleur dans la même journée la semaine dernière !), j'ai décidé d'aller magasiner dans une nouvelle pharmacie Familiprix. Tu m'as inspirée à aller voir ailleurs !
J'ai pensé à toi quand la jeune vendeuse cosméticienne (est-ce un mot ?) m'a donné des échantillons et un très beau shopping bag rose et blanc. Je me sentais comme une petite fille en sortant du magasin !
Moi aussi je souffre d'un orgelet tenace qui me défigure pas mal ! Le mien se retrouve à l'intérieur de la paupière du haut de l'oeil gauche. Les compresses n'ont pas réussi à le guérir; ça a nécessité une visite chez l'optométriste à Gatineau et une prescription de Tobradex (de la cortisone). Le déplacement s'est fait lors d'une mini tempête de verglas, qques jours avant la vraie tempête. L'oeil ou plutôt l'orgelet me fait bcp moins mal; toutefois, ce n'est pas trop beau à voir !
Les échantillons et la bonne jasette avec la jeune vendeuse m'ont remonté le moral. J'y vais doucement pour l'essai des nouveaux produits et des échantillons...Je suis "à fleur de peau", c'est-à-dire hypersensible, même quand ça vient à ma peau !!! Cette expression me décrit bien, au sens propre et au sens figuré !
Merci de tes bons souhaits chère Michelle. Quelle joie de découvrir ton essai à mon ordi dimanche passé. (Visage contente ici !) Ta dernière phrase "I'm off to wash my hair." m'a bien fait sourire. C'est ce que j'ai fait le matin de Pâques, avant de me rendre chez les miens pour le brunch de Pâques. Ça fait toujours de bien !
XXX