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This past week­end I took a lot of time get­ting ready for the Bliss­dom con­fer­ence. I laid out my clothes and carry-on good­ies and started packing.

*Reminder Jen: write  TSA a scathing let­ter on how biased they are on their liq­uid regulations.*

My hus­band used to travel weekly and had NO prob­lem with TSA’s 3–1-1 rule, but as a woman I am find­ing it VERY dif­fi­cult! Then again I’m think­ing it might be an age thing.

J: “Uhm, babe? You still packing?”

Me: “YES! Am I being timed?!” [sweet as always]

J: “Heh…remember when we used to fly off for the week­end and it would take you like 15 min­utes and we were off?!”

*grrrrrr*

Me:“Yea, and I was 20-something with­out a care in the world!”

Then it hit me. I’m packing-repacking-packing-packing-repa… because I have to do so much more to my face and body. My body can’t fig­ure out if it wants to be fit or just be comfy flop­ping all inside my yoga pants. And my face…Oy! I’ve got lotions that tighten, lotions that plump, and lotions that fill, tighten and plump. And they have to be used all at the same time. I’m sure I’m burn­ing thou­sands of calo­ries just putting on that crap! How am I going to look like a 20-something if I can’t fit all these miracle-producing beauty prod­ucts in my quart-sized ziplock bag??

Then I open up an older More mag­a­zine. Hmmm? Oh what? You young whip­per­snap­pers don’t know about the Beauty mag­a­zine for mid-lifers (ok, mostly they’re talk­ing to late 40+s, but I’m all ears.)? Les­ley Jane Sey­mour is a hilar­i­ous writer and is the Editor-in-Chief for More. She talks about how Midlife is the New Sev­enth Grade. She says:

“It’s the sec­ond time in our lives when phys­i­cal, hor­monal and emo­tional change is so dra­matic that peo­ple can actu­ally read it on our faces.”

Oh, sister…preach it.

I think it’s totally ratio­nal to allow women a 1-gallon ziplock bag. If a ter­ror­ist wants to bring some kind of explo­sive in with their beauty bag, they’re not going to quib­ble over ziplock bag sizes. Besides, every­one knows they just shove it down their pants.

One day, I will quit try­ing so hard to keep myself look­ing so young and will con­cen­trate solely on being healthy. One day I will not care that my laugh lines make me look like a Sharpei, but will embrace the reminders of my many years of laugh­ter. One day I will show off my full head of gray hair with pride but for now I will be the one being frisked by TSA for smug­gling in my pre­cious bot­tle of Hope in a Jay down my skivvies.