How I get younger.

A fun trick I played on me recently was convincing myself that I was turning 37 this week. I just realized I’m turning 36. Instantly, I gained a year of my life back.

When I turned 30, I started getting ads to freeze my eggs. Everyone knows that any pregnancy after 35 is “geriatric.” Or it felt like everyone but me knew that, and they all suddenly needed to talk about it—even if it was just to complain about the adjective. Whichever way, it’s irrelevant to me. How can I be geriatric anything when I am getting younger every year?

Sometimes I wonder if I have the female version of Peter Pan syndrome, which Liz Goldwyn and friends call “Peter Panettes.” She said they roam the boho lands of Tulum and Ibiza and Bali. I know the type she’s referring to, and I know I’m not that because I work, I don’t listen to EDM, and I don’t own a single body chain or drop-crotch pants.

I must have the type of Peter Pan that men seem to get—the ones who put off “life” and all of its associated responsibilities until later (or run from it if they fell into it early on), but can do it on concrete, amongst the masses who are Pan-negative. I don’t fear getting older, I fear committing to something permanent. Somehow it feels that marriage and kids and paying property taxes bring you closer to death than fulfillment. Same thing with getting a parrot or a tortoise or tattoo. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but I haven’t met anyone who’s been able to that.

Julia Roberts is to blame. I was Julia Roberts-pilled during my most formative years—her IMDB serving as a guide to life: run away from commitment, dabble in the manic pixie dream girl space, try your hand at photography, have toxic relationships with your best hetero cis male friend, taste fame and become a narcissist, be an accomplice to criminals, intimidate and wear the wrong clothes to work, prefer men who already have kids, be a whore. Just kidding.

Aging. The promises of how I would regret tanning and smoking and staying up all night still have not come to fruition. I tell myself it’s karmic reparations for having suffered oily, thick, acneic skin and chubby cheeks as a teenager. Now I get to reap the benefits of all that buccal fat and extra collagen.

As a pseudo-scientific study, I had new portraits taken recently by my dear friend, the photographer known as Anariam. She has taken several portraits of me over the years, starting back in 2015 when we worked together on Glossier’s Phase 2 launch. Now, over a decade later, I have basically 1-1 comparison images for how I have aged. I can assure everyone here that we’ve been way too worried about our 30s. In fact, there are photos of me from an interview I did back in 2014 where I can see on my face and body the impact of unaddressed stress, lack of sleep, lack of sunshine, bad hair color, and a diet consisting only of wonton soup and Smile To-Go banana bread. I look much “younger” now than at 24.

Having studied thousands of un-retouched images of myself and models over the years, the oft-overlooked most youthful traits are: a few zits, white eyes, white teeth, and hydrated skin—all of which are easy to address on your own, two of them instantly. (Curled lashes gets an honorable mention for its instant lifting effect, I just don’t like to do mine.)

I seriously can’t believe there’s so much discourse, right here on our precious Substack, of women getting face lifts at 37. I’m convinced that the concept of “aging” is propaganda and that time is a flat circle. (If you disagree, I invite you to revisit an aughties Harper’s Bazaar “Fabulous At Any Age” spread and tell me how relevant the outfits are to your current decade of life.) Cell damage can happen at any time!! Genetics and lifestyle are the culprits you should blame for skin damage. If you disagree, I invite you to check out the story of Karolina Olsson, the woman who hit her head and slept for 32 years while only appearing to age 11.

I don’t even think you gain wisdom with age—if anything, the more I’ve learned, the more I realize how much I don’t understand. Each time I try to be earnest about preparing for the future, what do they say? God laughs? Thus has been my entrée in the world of NAD+.

If you read my piece on Tesla’s Acne Treatment (hardly any of you did, thanks), you’ll remember that I got my first shot of the hottest biohack of the moment a few weeks ago while in LA. NAD+ is a peptide that our bodies naturally produce, but which declines with age. So, it’s thought that if we simply inject ourselves with more, it will not only slow the aging process, but reverse it. My friend, the famous Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, is a proponent, and the administrator of that fateful first injection.

Fast forward to a week ago, I received an unsolicited Amazon package with two different types of syringes, isopropyl alcohol wipes, and a wrench. Ominous, terrifying. Then my friend, the famous Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, texted me to say that I had a vial of NAD+ on the way, so I could continue with my juvenile backslide—me, the girl with a vasovagal reaction to needles.