Despite her Admitted Vanity, “Madame Novary” Yearns for Old Age

“Aging is a privilege, people say, but I couldn’t fully absorb it until I was faced with the prospect of … not aging.”

Rachelle Bergstein, post-chemo. “Soon after I finished chemo in the winter of 2023, I had my wild new growth evened out and came away with this cool crop.”

Right before I got diagnosed with cancer, I was seriously considering Botox.

It was August 2022, a month before my 41st birthday. The summer had been awful and it showed. My then 7-year-old son and I had both tested positive for Covid during Memorial Day weekend, and I’d spent the start of my favorite season in bed, feverish and disoriented. Then in June, I was side-swiped by a professional crisis that took more than a month to resolve. By the end of the summer, I was speedy and anxious. My face made no secret of what I’d been through: gray circles under my eyes, a new tightness around my mouth, two stark lines stamped between my eyebrows.

Even though I had every reason to look like crap, it felt like a failure on my part. When I was 25 and looked worn-out, there was never a question of whether or not I could sleep it off. But at 40, the stakes felt different. Would I stay like this forever? And if I didn’t do something about it — Botox, fillers, whatever — would it somehow be my fault? 

I wanted to live a long, healthy life and I didn’t want tiny telomeres tripping me up. But I was also concerned about my looks and what chemo would do to my hair — which I always wore long, wavy, and wild — my body, and my face. Sometimes, I wonder if our collective anxiety around aging has evolved as a culturally acceptable way to talk about the fear of death.

Aging is a privilege, people say, but they don’t say it in a vacuum. They say it in a world that seems to resent and even revile older women for not being young anymore. These days, female celebrities preserve themselves in the dermatological equivalent of amber. Women like J-Lo and Nicole Kidman still look hot, in a girlish way, well into their fifties. They’re rewarded by keeping their positions in the public eye, which is our culture’s way of saying right on.

Obviously I’m not an A-lister. But I want to keep working, loving, feeling good about myself. Could you put a price on your social worth? If so, Botox didn’t sound so crazy or expensive after all. 

***

I didn’t get Botox that August; I got a biopsy. When the results came in I was sitting by a pool with my parents. I had planned to spend the week with them at the Jersey Shore, enjoying some quality time and free childcare in the languid post-camp days of summer. Instead, a lump in my armpit had me shuttling back and forth to the city. I’d had a preventative mastectomy in 2020 — the BRCA gene runs in my family  — so breast cancer was unlikely, but still possible. 

I opened up the pathology report on my phone and gasped: my biopsy showed invasive breast cancer. I cried with my parents. My summer of stress was far from over. Labor Day weekend passed while I recovered from surgery; by mid-September, I was preparing for chemo. My 41st birthday came and went. I spent it the way I’d spent much of my time since getting diagnosed: ruminating about my mortality. I have an amazing husband — my college sweetheart — and a delightful, elementary-school-aged child. 

Leaving them isn’t an option.

And so, I gave myself over to modern medicine. I won’t lie and say I didn’t worry about the ravages of treatment, though. Chemo takes your hair. It dries out your skin, wrecks your nails, kills your ovaries. I read somewhere that it shortens your telomeres — a fun fact I picked up during a frantic late-night session with Dr. Google — which speeds up aging. I had never, ever thought about my telomeres before, but suddenly I was very concerned about them!

“My son and I — and all our hair! — a year before I was diagnosed.”

Mostly, that’s because I wanted to live a long, healthy life and I didn’t want tiny telomeres tripping me up. But I was also concerned about my looks and what chemo would do to my hair — which I always wore long, wavy, and wild — my body, and my face. Sometimes, I wonder if our collective anxiety around aging has evolved as a culturally acceptable way to talk about the fear of death. Even as a cancer patient, it’s easier to say I miss my hair than it is to admit the bigger, harder thing: I miss being carefree and reckless.

***

After my second round of chemo, my hair started coming out in fistfulls. The lowest point of my treatment was the morning I woke up, brushed my fingers through my mane and looked down to see two dark, nest-like piles in either hand. Like so many cancer patients before me, I decided to shave my head. Afterwards, I sent selfies to my mom, my sisters and my best friend, who all assured me I was pulling off G.I. Jane. 

When I found out I needed twenty weeks of chemo, I imagined I’d spend that time hiding out under a blanket. Certainly I did some of that, but I also did plenty of stepping out, too. I learned how to knot chic silk scarves around my head and walked around the city in big sunglasses, feeling like Jackie O. When my eyebrows started shedding, I compensated by wearing more eye makeup.

I didn’t like being bald any more than I liked feeling physically glued to my bed in the days following each treatment. Still I showed up, not just to the cancer center for a total of fifteen rounds of chemo and twenty-five zaps of radiation, but also — when I could — to the things that made me feel normal. My little sister’s 30th birthday party. Trick-or-treating with my son. Lunch dates with friends, wearing a leopard-print turban. Christmas with my mom, in a blonde wig.

Honestly, my deep reserves of self-confidence surprised me. When I found out I needed twenty weeks of chemo, I imagined I’d spend that time hiding out under a blanket. Certainly I did some of that, but I also did plenty of stepping out, too. I learned how to knot chic silk scarves around my head and walked around the city in big sunglasses, feeling like Jackie O. When my eyebrows started shedding, I compensated by wearing more eye makeup.

“This past spring, I wore my wavy shag au natural for a night out with my husband.”

On my good days, I tried to do things that felt life-affirming. I went to museums and saw art with friends and hiked with my family under New York State’s fiery autumn foliage. I remember one morning, the wind blew and leaves started gusting around like giant, magical raindrops. Had I ever noticed something so simple and stunning in nature before? I’m not sure, but I know I’d never appreciated the beauty of a season like I did that fall. 

Aging is a privilege, people say, but I couldn’t fully absorb it until I was faced with the prospect of … not aging. After I finished chemo, my hair started growing back, thick and fast on the sides and slower and tufty on top. One night I took off my turban in my bedroom, glanced at myself in the mirror and immediately started laughing. In that moment, the humor outranked the horror. I raked my hands through the poofs of new growth at my temples and fluffed them out like a clown wig, then went to show my husband and son. When my kid spotted me, he started giggling in the bubbly, breathless way that strikes my heart as the most precious music.

Mama, you look ridiculous, he said between gasps of laughter. 

My husband and I were also laughing so hard we were crying. Baby, I know.

One night I took off my turban in my bedroom, glanced at myself in the mirror and immediately started laughing. In that moment, the humor outranked the horror. I raked my hands through the poofs of new growth at my temples and fluffed them out like a clown wig, then went to show my husband and son. When my kid spotted me, he started giggling in the bubbly, breathless way that strikes my heart as the most precious music.

Losing my hair didn’t make me a monk. I’m still vain, silently pleading with my now almost shoulder length hair to grow back faster. Here and there, I let myself worry about my telomeres and what years and years of treatment — I’ve just finished one “targeted therapy,” whatever that means, and will start another pill in a few months — will do to me. I’ve had my ovaries removed, which is standard protocol for a BRCA patient who has had hormone-receptive breast cancer. Early surgical menopause isn’t great for your overall health, nor does it sound very appealing. I prefer to think of myself simply as a woman with no ovaries: Madame No-vary. My menopausal symptoms have been mild. I’m lucky in that regard. 

Order Rachelle Bergstein’s book…

Sometimes, I daydream about the day that I’ll bring my son to college and I smile, knowing that just making it to that summit will feel like a significant accomplishment. When I get him to his dorm room, at the age of 52, will I be thinking about my fine lines? I hope not, but I’m also training myself to care less about them.

Sometimes, I daydream about the day that I’ll bring my son to college and I smile, knowing that just making it to that summit will feel like a significant accomplishment. When I get him to his dorm room, at the age of 52, will I be thinking about my fine lines? I hope not, but I’m also training myself to care less about them.

Here’s how: I’ve surrounded myself with women who are comfortable in their own skin. I reread The Beauty Myth (say what you will about Naomi Wolf, but that book is a banger). And sometimes, when I need a more powerful inoculation, I open up Snapchat on my phone. Yes, Snapchat. I start by messing around with the filters, enjoying a screen-perfected image of myself, without hollows under my eyes and with baby-smooth skin. Then, I scroll through to the old-age filter. I come face-to-face with a wrinkly, jowly person who has my eyes, nose and mouth. She’s a digital visitor from the future, the one I’ve fought so hard for. I always make sure to pause, make eye contact and smile at her. Inevitably, she smiles back.

Maybe I’ll cave someday, but I still haven’t gotten Botox.