Please stop telling me I’m looking tired

Carron Stacey - 28 Feb 18

1. Please stop telling me I look tired. I’m actually a lot less tired than last week. This week, I’m aiming to go to bed way earlier than last week. I mean 11pm rather than midnight. Now that I’ve finished Twin Peaks The Reboot (and I was nearly as peed off as I was when Pamela Ewing popped out of the shower to find her Atlantis hubby still alive in bed), there isn’t as much to keep me up.
2. Please stop telling me I look tired. I’m drinking nearly enough, and I mean water not prosecco. I’ve realised that drinking prosecco (or just alcohol in general) does give me bags in the mornings, but I haven’t drunk much since that fondue party. (That was only two weeks ago. I am trying.)
3. Please stop telling me I look tired. I’ve always been a late turner-in-er. I burned my duvet when I was young, reading Agatha Christie books after lights-out. I come alive at around 10pm. Well, this isn’t so true now I’m getting older, but once I’ve gone upstairs, I wake up again even if I was comatose on the sofa in front of Marcella just now. (Where is she now? Has she had another blackout? What have I missed?)
4. Please stop telling me I look tired. As a voracious reader, I have to read when I go to bed. I read as many chapters as I can before dropping my Kindle or book, then just one more for the road. Even when I’m tipsy, I still have to read. I just re-read that bit the next night too.
5. Please stop telling me I look tired. I occasionally think some people are gaslighting me – I think I look OK. I’ve actually made more of an effort with my makeup and hair today.m But oh no, they say I don’t, I look tired. Am I coming down with something? Am I doing too much? Sometimes it feels like just an excuse to say something negative.
6. Please stop telling me I look tired. I am allowed to say it. When we’re asked Are you alright? No one wants a detailed answer, so we just reply Just tired. You know!
7. Please stop telling me I look tired. Did you know I’ve always had these bloody eye bags? I’m 47 this year and they’ve not changed. Anyone who can remember Neighbours back in the 80s will know the character who had massive bags. I am her. My friends say I look like Deborah Meaden. I can only focus on her eyebags. Nothing I do changes them. Touche Eclat? Buzzcocks. A cold spoon? WTFlip! Massage with your ring finger? Yeh rite.
8. Please stop telling me I look tired. This is just me, it’s the way I am. And although you may have none at all, did you know that under this fringe, I have absolutely no lines on my forehead at all. None. Like a baby’s bottom. So there.

Carron Stacey

Carron Stacey, a late-40s mum who works in school to keep her sanity. Enjoys the beach and the humdrum things in life. Mum to a tweenie boy, living on the coast in the UK.

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