Mammoth Complex, Part Three: Bombshells

Mammoth Complex is a three-part essay series about my life in my body.

Previous Segments: Intro, Part One, Part Two

Content Warning: Eating disorder, body image, and fat phobic issues. This essay represents my recollection of events and may not reflect the experience of other participants. Names and identifying details have been changed for privacy reasons. Certain characters may be composites.

Erica J., Age 4, Ms. Strotman’s kindergarten class

Disposable Income

I’m from the cohort of Millennials who didn’t get to buy houses unless we pulled off a significant hustle and/or asked our parents for help. Me and most my pals did neither, so we got to our mid-thirties and found that after we paid for our cheap rent and aspirational vegetable baskets, we had a few extra $5 bills. What would we spend them on?

Every Friday night, over slices of pizza the size of our heads, me and my two bombshell besties shoot the shit, swapping the past week’s drama and expenditures. From library books on the mother wound to fast fashion sweatpants.

The drama: A Gay Husband is gaslighting.  A parent has triggered adverse childhood experiences. A suitor has proposed clubbing.

The expenditures: A standing desk ($499). Perfume that smells like a man with means ($230) A five-minute bikini wax ($55 for pandemic accumulation). And then suddenly we’re talking about ageing.

Lost Youth

Over the past couple of years, I have a rehearsed speech about how I am not as cute as I was in March of 2020. Since I turned 30, I look back on selfies, mourning my lost charm and good looks. I used to be so much cuter, more charming, and creative—three years ago, six months ago, last Tuesday.

My cuteness, I’m convinced, peaked right before quarantine. I was in Mexico, wailing and failing the digital nomad dream. Post house fire, I had run away from the Canadian winter and also the devastating rental market I feared might force me to have roommates. I processed my grief and anxiety sobbing my face off as I paced the beach at sunrise and sunset. Freshly cleaned for $20, my white-ish teeth gleamed against my excellent tan. I was fit, albeit a touch starving, from alternating carrot cake and coconuts and sugar-coated peanuts for lunch. Then Corona hit and the Government of Canada, and more persistently my father, insisted that I fly home.

Locked down in Toronto, I lamented to a friend on the phone—“I am probably the hottest I will ever be and what a waste. I’m all alone.” My glowing tan and bikini bod would inevitably fade as I dipped carrot sticks into the peanut butter jar, not a soul or a fuck in site.

(This might be one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever written)

My friend laughed but she also kind of got it. Would we ever feel this beautiful again?

Lost Youth, March of 2020

One Pizza Night, Brunette Bombshell Bestie announced, “I’m thinking of getting lip injections.” The consult was free. The injections cost almost as much as my rent. It never occurred to me that my lips might need inflating. I had to examine my lips later to figure out what kind of lips I actually have. (The small kind. Was this a problem?)

To me, the lip injections seemed like an attempt to remedy a blah point in my friend’s relationship. Blonde Bombshell Bestie partly agreed but she also said, “I can see the appeal though. It’s biological for men to be attracted to voluptuous lips.”

This had never crossed my mind. Maybe that’s why I have been single for so long.

At the peak of my youth and vigour (age 21), I briefly dated a guy I call the Vegan Life Coach. Not briefly enough. According to the VLC, I had wrinkles on my forehead due to premature ageing due to Prozac and too much coffee and too many animal products.

I ditched the Prozac though I would continue to drink coffee religiously for another 14 years. I did my best to be a good vegan but then I got too hungry. I am pretty sure my forehead wrinkles are just from scrunching up my face.

Turkey Neck

Mid-pandemic, Blonde BB announced that she had taken up facial yoga, fearing the turkey neck and double chin of her older relatives. So, facial yoga is a real thing. All over Instagram, there are certifications. Teacher Trainings, summits. The takeaway is— in addition to stretching, the foam roller, high intensity interval training, progressive weight training, functional movement, laundry, we are supposed to exercise our faces. Oh, and don’t forget your sunscreen!

My favourite facial yoga exercise entails pursing your lips together and then making a popping sound as you lift your mouth up towards the sky. I feel like you might get similar effects from a makeout session or a blow job.

But I get the double chin dread. I was probably only seven or eight when I discovered the horrifying prospect of double chins. Second to getting fat, double chins seemed like one of the worst things that could happen to you. It is very sad to write this. Before school or after swim team, I would stand in front of the mirror and pull my cheeks back and the flesh under my jawline up so it was taut. I was such a cute  and dorky bookworm, and instead of relaxing into my happy place, while I was reading, I’d stick a pillow under my chin thinking to keep my skin taut and coax any extra flesh back into my neck and jaw. Again, I was seven. Maybe eight.

Fumiko Takatsu, the face of facial yoga. I tried to model a facial yoga pose but could not do it justice. Image Credit: Instagram Ad by faceyoga method.

 “Your Face Will Fall”

In line for a giant slice of vegetarian, Brunette Bombshell Bestie, displayed her fresh nude nails, the first time in a decade they hadn’t been covered with gel or shellac (I had to Google these terms. My manicures consist of ripping off my fingernails during Zoom calls with my twelfth therapist.)

“I just wanted to give my nails a rest,” she said. “Plus, I don’t mind saving $40 every two weeks.”

“Oh, but you don’t have to pay for therapy,” I said to console her.

“Except I just spent $650 on cheek injections.”

“What? But you’re so beautiful.” Not to say that if she were ugly, I’d have had an easier time pretending I thought the injections were a good idea. Accented with perfect makeup, her angular supermodel face was as gorgeous as ever, if a bit sheepish. I couldn’t really tell the difference.

“Oh, he did a good job,” said Blonde Bombshell Bestie, ever more tactful than I am. “Subtle.”

I spent Pizza Night staring at my reflection in the window, watching as my eyebrows furrowed and etched deep lines into my forehead. These days, Blonde Bombshell Bestie never orders a Caesar salad with her pizza anymore. Aimee her facial acupuncturist says that cold food runs havoc on your qi, tiring out your spleen and other organs, robbing your skin of its natural radiance.

“Aimee says, you have to change your habits or your face will fall!” Blonde BB’s tone was playful and she had a twinkle in her eye. But I thought, yikes, I’m not changing my habits. What’s going to happen to my face?

“Maybe I’m just gonna let my face fall,” I told Brunette BB on the way home. “Maybe that will be my thing.” My friend was totally supportive. She didn’t seem super empowered by her new investment, but I could have projected my buzz kill onto her pockets of hyaluronic acid.

At the end of the night, I voice memoed my dear friend Ruth from university. She’s manages to earn her livelihood travelling across the continent delivering five-figure keynotes. I hate to call her a motivational speaker because I don’t tend to like these people. But I love Ruth the most.

“Brunette BB got cheek injections. Something about her nasolabial folds.” (I had to look these up and from what I can tell, they seem like very reasonable lines to have alongside your cheeks.) “So now I’m in my favourite head trip feeling guilty that I’m the only one who’s not forking over piles of cash to fix my face.” (Current skincare budget: $15/month. Includes a peasant’s three-part routine plus tinted moisturizer with SPF.)

Ruth voice memoed back:

“I’m actually strongly considering Botox. I just want to look ten years younger. Maybe it’s just my industry but literally, everyone gets Botox. And if you don’t then you’re the one who looks old.”

This person is divinely beautiful—lighting up the world, and Instagram. She was fresh back from some ambiguous elitist leadership conference in Detroit. I’m concerned it’s a pyramid scheme. It sounded tiring.

Everyone Is Getting Laid

When I was in high school, I lived under the delusion that only a select few misguided people were having sex. Everyone else was like me, busy practising for concert band and getting excellent grades and perhaps also neurotically overexercising to ward off their Mammoth Complexes. We were far too young to have sex. It wasn’t sensible. Surely, my fellow classmates agreed that the best was to wait for the right time, the right person. Meanwhile, everybody except for me was getting laid.

Index Card

Considering my falling face, that Pizza Night before I went to bed I wrote down a question for my twelfth therapist on an index card:

"Ask Karen if she's ever gotten Botox. If yes, how many times? That's how many times you're allowed to get it.”

Karen’s in her fifties and her face is striking and elegant.

“Oh, isn’t she beautiful?” the besties say whenever I share one of her Instagram reels on soothing your nervous system. She’s regally beautiful. And perhaps part of the charm is, she looks like a real person.

The next Wednesday at therapy, I read out the index card for Karen. She covered her face and laughed.

“Well, you’re allowed to have Botox one time. But not until your 45.” She leaned into her camera to show me the tiny crease above the ridge of her nose. I guess on one very bad day, the line was driving her nuts. So she signed up for Botox.

“It hurt. Gave me a bruise. And then I didn’t even notice a difference. So I decided I’d save the $200.” Just $200? Oh, Karen.

I told her about my gay neighbour who has been getting fillers and preventative Botox since he was 38. “My facial muscles are dead now,” he says. “I love it.”

“How is that a good idea? You can’t just paralyze your face.” I asked Karen. “I think I’m anti-Botox.”

“Yah, and it’s not a good look,” said Karen. “Everybody just looks flat and the same and weird.”

“I CAN’T DO THIS”

The year before my mother turned 50, my parents were supposed to get divorced for the eleventh to fortieth time. But then instead of moving into his own apartment, my dad found his dream house in the country and decided they could move into it together. If you’ve already gotten married and had kids, new real estate offers a third winning remedy when your marriage is on the rocks.

For my mother’s birthday, my grandparents and a gang of relatives made the trip for the party. My sister and I brought in the candled pumpkin pie and led the crowd in Happy Birthday. Over a chorus of lively, convincing singing, my mother wailed, “I CAN’T DO THIS. I’M SO SORRY. I CAN’T DO THIS. I JUST CAN’T DO THIS.”

Years later, I remember telling the star of my life’s first great love story about my mother sobbing at her 50th  birthday party. I wasn’t sure what she felt she could not do. Her marriage. Menopause. The next ten to forty-nine years of her life.

“I think it’s hard for women to age,” my ex-boyfriend had said. “When you get to 50, you’ll see how you feel.” 

At Least We Have Teeth

Back on Zoom I told Karen, “I’m going to be 37 and I think I look on-brand. My concern is that I’m gonna be off-brand. You know, I don’t want to be 38 and look 48.”

Karen said, “Erica, you’re beautiful!”

And I was like, “So are my Bombshell Besties! So is Ruth. It actually rips me apart inside.”

I can easily shudder at the ubiquitous rise of Botox and youthful remedies. But it’s hard to be smug about any of this when you spent the better part of 1.5 decades counting your steps and your lunches, alternating pathological exercise routines with a spectrum of vomit-related behaviour.

I have my own hang-ups too. My teeth took a beating during my professional eating disorder. A decade of vomit and litres of coffee eroded my enamel to the point that it hurts to bite into an apple straight out of the fridge. Or smile in the cold as the wind blows against my molars. Of course, it’s not my exposed dentin or the risk of a root canal that worries me. I wish I had bright pearly movie star teeth. Instead, I must content myself with intact for now and white-ish. Along the sides, my gums are worn down revealing a palette of brown stains. Every once in a while, I devote my life to swishing with remedies of clay and baking soda and coconut oil. Until there comes a time that I’d rather be doing something else.

Brunette Bombshell Bestie almost lost her teeth to bulimia. She flew to India, borrowing $15K from her relatives to pay for a full set or porcelain crowns. Her teeth are so perfect now, sometimes I wish I had wrecked my own completely so that I could trade mine in. Some people trade theirs in anyways. It’s nuts. At least we have teeth.

The Jeans Were Being Assholes

A few days before my 37th birthday, I put on a new pair of jeans. At the store, I’d felt mildly sexy. That morning I suddenly detested my thighs which I’ve grown to like in my old age. I mourned my twenties, back when it was easier to find jeans and someone to fuck. I wept at all my life’s failures, made manifest by one wrong pair of jeans. I felt like I was 13 years old.

“That’s why I’ve cancelled hard pants,” a friend said.

“The jeans were being assholes,” my sister said. Fuck those jeans. I took them back.

Otherwise, I do my best not to despair in front of the mirror. We can’t all grow up to be tiny and adorable, but we can still be bombshells. Plus, who’s to say we’re not as cute as we were in March of 2020. And who’s to say when we’ll ever be this cute again. 

Erica J., Age 10

Erica J., Age 37

The End

Previous Segments of Mammoth Complex, my life in my body

Intro: Grade Eight Part One: Tiny and Adorable Part Two: Liposuction 101

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