06 Oct Tired of Looking Tired

“You look so tired….” is a comment that I’ve been getting from people on a pretty consistent basis. It’s a comment that has always bugged me, cause, seriously, what good can come from telling someone they look tired?

Perhaps I’m being a tad sensitive, but to me, telling someone they look tired is essentially the same thing as telling someone they look like shit.

The “tired” comment was totally acceptable when I was a new mother functioning on 3 hours of sleep.  I never really felt it was helpful when others would point out the dark circles under my eyes, but I would simply shrug it off, because….. THEY WERE RIGHT!! For the first several months of motherhood, I WAS exhausted.  The bags under my eyes were a testament to how tough things were and how sleep deprived I was.

But fast forward six years and so much has changed.  Gone are the sleepless nights, replaced by 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I felt great, I felt energized, I was in the best shape of my life.  And yet, I still found myself receiving the “tired comments”.

I started examining my face more closely in the mirror and the dark circles under my eyes were undeniable. Despite my best efforts, concealer just wasn’t cutting it.  For a while, these pesky dark circles kind of baffled me; I never felt better, so why were my eyes telling another story? And then it dawned on me.  It actually hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’m getting older.  My face is changing.  And even though I’m so young at heart and often feel like I’m still in high school, I’m actually a woman who is a few months shy of turning 40.

Perhaps this “tired” look that so many people were graciously pointing out was simply one of the ways that my face was aging.

After doing a little research, I learned that there is actually a name for these mystery under eye circles; they’re called tear troughs.  These sunken in, dark circles were simply the indentation that forms between the lower eyelid and the cheek.

Before

After

I also learned that there was a simple fix to my tear trough issue; fillers. Dermal fillers promised to make my tear troughs look smoother and healthier and ultimately give me a “youthful look with no downtime”. I have to be honest, crossing into the world of fillers felt kind of scary and created some inner turmoil inside of me, causing me to question my values. The righteous voice inside of my head was telling me, “You should just age gracefully. You should just accept these dark circles under your eyes and not let them bother you.” But the fact of the matter was that these dark circles WERE bothering me.

Call it vain, call it superficial, call it whatever you want, but it’s my truth.  I decided that I didn’t want to accept this, I wanted to change it.

So I took the plunge.  I had my trusted dermatologist Dr. Krasny at Dermafina fill my tear troughs.  It was painless, took less than 2 minutes and the dark circles under my eyes practically disappeared instantaneously.  I looked exactly the same, just more refreshed. I was still me, just a less-tired-looking me.

It seems that many women feel the need to be discreet about these types of “cosmetic tweaks”, perhaps for fear of being judged.  I’ve decided to take a bit of a different stance and just own it and not feel guilty or ashamed about it.   Aging is an inevitable part of life and I realize that I don’t have the power to stop the clock.   But I guess I’m willing to put up a bit of a fight and slow the process down just a tad.

For more information on fillers or any other procedures contact Dr. Mark Krasny at Dermafina.

https://youtu.be/1BG1RU0Z_K8