Is Jennifer Garner a Big Fat Liar?

As I become more fully embedded into my fifties (half out of acceptance and half out of sheer resignation), I’ve decided to take a new approach to aging. I’ve decided to fight it. Me vs. Time. Me vs. Gray Hair. Me vs. Wrinkles. They’re all going to be fights to the finish. To hell with ‘aging gracefully’. I want my freaking 40s back.

I’m tired of waking up in the morning and not recognizing the person that I see in the mirror…a wrinkly and distorted version of a geriatric Cabbage Patch Doll. Swollen face and eyes, pillow-creased cheeks that take longer and longer each morning to fade, crater-sized pores on my nose and new hairs that pop up randomly overnight.

In the infancy of my revolt, Jennifer Garner happened across my television screen in a commercial talking about wrinkles. I love Jennifer Garner. She doesn’t know it but we’re soul sisters. I had the poor-and-chubby-girl version of her marriage to Ben Affleck. Watching her go through her ups and downs with him gave me hope that if it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone.

So when she showed up on my screen explaining to me that in one week I could see visible results on my rapidly aging face, I believed her. I hopped in my car and drove to CVS and bought the stuff. If it’s good enough for Jennifer, it’s good enough for me.

Fast forward a week and zero results. Literally nothing. At one point I thought the road map that had become my face might actually be expanding its territory. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. “Why, Jennifer Garner? Why you gotta lie, girl?”

The stuff wasn’t cheap either! I decided that I wasn’t going to waste the rest of the jar so I kept applying it until it was all gone, my resentment for Jennifer Garner growing with each application.

When I ran out of the stuff, I went back to CVS to read each label of every single anti-aging cream and Googled each product and ingredient. Standing in that aisle, I read reviews and testimonials and spent a good 45 minutes trying to figure out which one of these miracle products was going to help me with my war on wrinkles. At one point, one of the employees came over to ask me if I needed help. I think she thought I was trying to shoplift because she continued to hover near me while I finished my research.

I kept thinking about Jennifer Garner. Trustworthy, wholesome, beautiful, All-American-Girl-Next-Door, Jennifer Garner; the poster woman for dignity. My divorced-lady kindred spirit. I picked up her jar of lies again….’Buy One Get One Half Off’. Interesting. They must be desperate to get this crap off the shelves.

For no reason that I can explain beyond the power of good advertising and half-dazed from all the reading and comparative analysis, I brought Jennifer’s high-tech looking box up to the register for the second time in my life.

“You know you can get another one of these for half off?” the gum-chewing cashier asked me after she scanned my CVS card. I hated her gum chewing. I hated her 25-year-old skin.

“Yeah, no thanks! I shouldn’t even be buying this one!  I don’t want two of them. This stuff doesn’t even work. Freaking Jennifer Garner.”

Silence. She froze. Her mouth slightly open mid-chew, her outstretched scanner at an awkward angle, her eyes wide in disbelief. In my peripheral, I could see the hoverer walking slowly toward us.

“I’m sorry. I love Jennifer Garner. I don’t know why I said that,” I mumbled as I finished my purchase and threw in four packs of the closest gum for good measure. I walk-ran out of the store.

Fast-forward AGAIN after two more weeks of faithful daily applications. My daughter comes home from college for a weekend visit and the first thing, hand to God, she says to me is, “Mom, your skin looks amazing!”

She reaches out to touch it and says, “It’s so soft!” and keeps petting and poking my face.

I jump up and look in the mirror to see what she’s seeing. I contract my face muscles into an exaggerated smile. Relax. Contract. Relax. Contract. What the hell? I grabbed my glasses to confirm what I was seeing.

I KNEW my faithful friend Jennifer Garner wouldn’t let me down! I never doubted her for a second! (Dammit! Why didn’t I get that second jar?) My skin DID look amazing! The lines were still there but they were smaller…the space between each one, less pronounced. Were my pores smaller? Huh.

How did I not notice that my skin WAS softer? I started petting and poking my face much in the same shocked manner that my daughter had just moments ago.

I walked away from that mirror with two very important reminders of things that I already knew; 1) Jennifer Garner is a Queen and 2) Patience really is a virtue.

That night after my daughter left I rented ‘13 Going on 30’ again. I put on Jennifer’s face cream and as an added show of support, I got up and danced with her during the Thriller scene. It was the least I could do.

So, ladies my message to you is this: Don’t give up! Try and try again when it comes to looking and feeling your best! We may not be able to completely halt the effects of growing older but with a little patience, a little Jennifer Garner, and some really good face cream, we can at least slow it down some.