fifty three weeks

A year ago, I was packing the last of my things for my move.

So much has happened in the past year that I can feel my head begin to spin just thinking about thinking about it all. I remember my own rush to get things packed before supper - I didn't want to worry about anything on Hallowe'en. I just wanted to enjoy trick-or-treating with F. I can still feel the ache in my heart knowing I had to leave him behind for a while. I don't have words to describe that, even today.

I remember waking up on November 1 and packing the "big stuff" onto the back of Dad's truck, and sharing the drive to Halifax. I remember discovering my apartment door unlocked - and furiously looking for new apartments on the drive back to Cape Breton that night. You don't need to ask how angry I was when I found that same door unlocked shortly afterwards, though both episodes pale in comparison to the hissy fit I threw when I discovered that every single thing I owned was missing from my apartment the week I was due to start classes - just one week later. Sometimes, I honestly don't know how I stuck it out. And by sometimes, I mean all the time. I really must be crazy.

"It's just a year," everyone said.  "It'll fly by. A year is nothing."

In many ways, they were right. It was just a year that flew by. But it wasn't nothing. It was two broken hearts and months and months of heartache. It was tears and sorry and it was laughter and joy and excitement and pride. I didn't think this much could be packed into one year. It was wiping tears from the end of Mom and Dad's driveway to the ferry once a month, and sobbing in the parking lot of the apartment the following week after saying goodbye to F.

The last year has been pretty crazy. A year ago today, F and I dressed as a James the Tank Engine and a Fire Fighter respectively, and we had a fun night. He's not so into dressing up this year, but he rocked his costume at his Hallowe'en party yesterday but told me he's already done all the trick-or-treating he wants to do. Today - one year later - I'm wearing a tutu at the best job I've ever had and he's probably eating a bowl of fruit at daycare with his friends. A year can be huge. It can be life changing.

And it was.

Twentysomethinghood

Oh, being a twentysomething.

I'm about to cross the line of just mid-twenties to upper mid-twenties and I'm kind of freaking out, man because this whole growing up this is bologna. Seriously. Who invented this shit? I've got bills on top of bills on top of some cellulite and a handful of wrinkles and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? I'm about 90 per cent sure that I spotted a grey hair last week, but my eyesight's so bad I couldn't quite manage to find it to rip it out. There was a time - perhaps not so very long ago - when I thought being a twentysomething was the most glamorous thing in the world. Pfft.

I'm drinking tea, writing this blog with Nair all over my legs and a facemask on. This is so not what I expected the fabulosity of twentysomethighood to be.

A kid YOUNG LADY I used to babysit turned 18 today. WHAT THE WHAT? Is that even possible? Someone stop the world, I need to get off for a minute. I can remember packing up my old Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets - the ones that actually fit in your pocket - to give to this girl when she was preschool-aged. I remember giving her boy advice when I was post-highschool-grad and she was getting ready to enter junior high school. She tweeted a goodbye to her 17th year last night. She has no idea how gone it is.

Because, my gorgeous, young friend... there comes a time in your early adult life when you will find yourself sitting on your bathroom floor attempting an at-home bikini wax (which, FYI, is the dumbest thing you will ever try to do at home, by yourself) and you will also find yourself eating dinner in the bathtub sometimes because you actually don't have enough time to eat and bathe. You will put on a great show of being a grownup, only to call your Mom later because you just totally effed something up and nobody knows how to fix things like a Mom does. And you will undoubtedly sacrifice food that is actually real food with taste so you can buy that fabulous pair of boots and then try to lie to your mother by saying they were on sale. She'll know better.

I think it's a generational thing, this idea that your twenties will be this golden time in your life when everything is roses and everything will just play out magically. It doesn't, and it's not.

But it's amazing and it's worth it. And when all else fails, there is nail polish.

Tanda Zap (review)

I can honestly count on one hand the number of breakouts I had as a teenager.

Seriously. I was blessed with clear skin that rarely broke out throughout junior high and high school, with one "real" breakout in grade 10 which I remember vividly because I was terrified that it was going to last. Figuring I was just lucky, I delved into the world of my 20's without so much as a thought that I might have more than the occasional pimple once a month. 

Then I had F.

I've had more acne in the past two years than I've had in my entire life. I spend most of my time with a series of little blemishes just to the right of my chin between my jawline and the corner of my mouth. I tried the oil cleansing method. I cut pop out of my diet. I even reduced my caffeine intake. I switched moisturizers, multiple times. I changed cleansers. I bought OTC acne products, and I spent a lot of time looking up natural methods of clearing up breakouts. Fact: cinnamon and honey does work, but it's a bitch to get out of your pillowcase if you consider doing the whole overnight treatment mask thing. 

One of the benefits of tanning is that it clears up my acne in about three sessions. The downside is that my acne decides to come back about a week or two after I stop soaking up the UV rays. The truth is a little cluster of blemishes is a pretty tiny deal in comparison to, you know, skin cancer and advanced photoaging of my skin. But the blemishes bother me nevertheless, and while I can photoshop the heck out them in portraits I can't always do the same in real life. When my mom mentioned seeing a blue light machine at Shopper's Drug Mart, I expected it to be outrageously overpriced but I went in to check it out anyway.

Spoiler alert: The Tanda Zap is totally reasonable! Yay!

At $49 CAD plus taxes, the Tanda Zap is cheaper than visiting a dermatologist and considerably cheaper than purchasing an acne treatment collection such as Pro-Activ (which I have never used, so I can't speak to its effectiveness). Most reviewers say that they had to replace their Tanda about once a year - which seems more than reasonable to me. Supposing I had to replace it twice a year, it would still cost me less than ten dollars a month to use. 

But the real question remained: will it work?

After purchasing the Zap, I realized (while laying in the bathtub reading the instructional pamphlet) that I had no AAA batteries. Dang. So I stole some from F's toys. They didn't have *quite* enough juice, so I had to wait one whole day to test it out. Horrors. Once I had the batteries in, I followed the extremely simple directions and pressed the round head to my blemishes and pressed the little triangle "on" button.

Then you just hold it to your face and wait. Easy, right? I know.

The whole process takes around 2 minutes. The light is super bright (it does come with a warning not to look into it. I did. I don't recommend this.) and I really appreciate that it's not a hot light, because my skin would be way too sensitive. You can feel a gentle vibration against your skin and if you're a mom and able to do almost everything with only one-hand anyway, it's really not much of an inconvenience. In case you're wondering, I'm impatient and the thought of not doing something I want to do for 2 whole minutes is pretty much my idea of torture. The pamphlet indicated that you should treat the affected area(s) three times a day, in conjunction with proper cleansing and skincare. By day two of using the product, I could see a huge difference in my skin.

I'm now over a week into the Tanda Zap regime and while my skin hasn't totally cleared up, it has improved enough that just a dusting of makeup completely covers my blemishes. When I feel anything stirring up, I treat it immediately and in two cases, it stopped the blemish before it was visible. Who doesn't love that?

I will admit that I've also drastically changed my skincare regime in the past two weeks to also include Retinoid creams and a more ahem, diligent cleansing routine so this could also have a profound effect on my skin. Bottom line? My skin looks good and that's what I was going for. I love the Tanda and would highly recommend it.

I also noticed that you can purchase another Tanda machine which comes with some anti-aging heads also. While I wasn't really in the market for a nearly $200 product on that particular shopping trip, I would likely consider it in the future. The Tanda Zap comes in a few colours (mine is white), and batteries are sold separately. You can read more about the Tanda Zap on their website.

This post is in no way sponsored or endorsed by Tanda or any other company. My opinions are just that: mine. 

Breaking Bad (Habits)

I have a confession to make: I take absolutely terrible care of my skin. 

Or, at least, I have been taking terrible care of my skin. I'm trying really hard to better myself, but there are some habits that are just so hard to break. With summer now far behind me (according to the temperatures, anyway), the days of lounging in the sun and sweating in the humid air have been replaced with dark mornings and cold, dry winds. My skin started to feel the difference before I had really clued in, and with my new, heavy moisturizer comes the turning of a new leaf. It's time to take better care of my skin. In just over two weeks since completely overhauling the way I treat my skin, I see a huge difference.

First up on my list of things to do was quit tanning. Quit. Gone. Bye-bye. After years of chasing a golden glow, I've decided that the only glow I'm getting has to come from a bottle. My pale, freckle-covered skin was beginning to show my bad habit a little too much, with clusters of freckles that looked like dark spots and a few more laugh lines than I wanted cropping up. Defense is the best offence here, people, and I don't want the skin of a 40-year-old before I hit 30. I quit tanning 3 weeks ago. I'm now looking pale and loving it.

Yes, I consider this "tanned".

Next, I had to stop going to sleep with makeup on. This was going to be harder. Although my initial thought was to rush out and grab some make-up removing wipes, I had not one, not two but three full-sized bottles of Neutragena face cleansers that needed some attention, so I've been using those instead. In practice, my new night-time regime takes all of 5 minutes. Twice a week I use a gentle scrub to remove all the dead skin. Stay tuned for a review on my Neutragena Pore-Minimizing products - they're ahhh-mazing.

Pale is the new tan.

Then after reading oodles of reviews and speaking directly to a dermatologist, I decided to start using a Retinol cream, beginning with twice a week, in conjunction with a heavy nighttime moisturizer and eye cream. I'm not quite ready to move on to a third time per week, but I've noticed my skin has become much brighter and smoother already. I'll be reviewing my Neostrata Anti-Wrinkle Night Complex soon!

One of my worst skin-care habits is picking at blemishes. I can't. stop. touching. them. AHH! As soon as a pimple begins, I'm on it with tweezers or fingers. One of the bonuses of tanning was that my acne completely disappeared, but I picked up a Tanda Zap and I'm having really great results so far. I'm sorry to say you'll have to wait for that review, too!

Between now and December, I'll be reviewing a beauty product a week! I'll also take some additional photos to show you the progress in my skin, from the blemishes to the fading of my tan and "dark spots". I don't know what kind of damage my skin has already suffered, but I know that I'm going to be more aware and more conscientious in the future... and will look 30 forever. 

... Or something like that.

The Best

You only accept the love you think you deserve.

I read this line over and over and realized how true those words have been in my own life, and in the lives of some of those closest to me. It's been a journey of learning and understanding for me to be able to recognize that I have often deserved more than I demanded from myself and others. I spent years as the pushover. I gave up on myself again and again, and I have nothing but a lot of wasted time to show for that. I've accomplished more in the last year than I did in the four preceding it. Why? Because I demanded it of myself.

While there are certainly times that I'm sorry things didn't turn out the way I had expected, first with J and then with Red, the truth is that I'm totally OK without them. Better than OK, actually. Much better. Talking about the issues with J is much like flogging a dead horse at this point, and things with Red are as complicated as they are raw. But, there comes a time when you must accept that you cannot change things and there is so much healing in just letting go. 

I won't pretend to have it all figured out - I don't. I don't even have half of it figured out, and I won't pretend that my life is always in harmony. There are days when I wish I had something I don't, or I feel a pang of jealousy towards someone else's fortunes. I won't dare admit the number of days I begrudge J and his carefree existence. But is it carefree? I don't know. I do know he's not helping raise his child in any way, shape or form, and sometimes that hurts. But mostly, it doesn't. I decided a long time ago that he was no longer my problem.

Giving ourselves what we deserve can be difficult. Recognizing our worth is often impossible, as we are so clouded by our own harsh criticisms that we cannot see past them. We must learn to give ourselves credit where credit is due, and perhaps most importantly, we have to give ourselves a break every now and again. We can only accept the love we think we deserve. 

What if we all decided we deserve the best?