Have you ever looked at a photo of someone you have known for a long time but have not seen in awhile and thought to yourself, "OMG – she is looking old."  I have…indeed those were my exact words not long ago when I saw a photo of someone I had not seen in years.  Then I thought to myself, but didn’t say out loud, "Thank goodness I look good for my age." Ah, the lies we tell ourselves. It is nothing short of amazing how clearly we can see aging on others but overlook it on ourselves.

But God delivered a wake up call to me the other day immediately after I put in one contact lens.  I had pulled down the skin by my lower lid to put my contact in and after popping it in and while still having one eye quite capable of seeing very close up I noticed a horrible reality – the skin I pulled down didn’t bounce back.  Actually, bounce back is too optimistic a term.  In reality, I had to push the skin back in the other direction to get it back where it belonged.  Seriously, it was an ah-ha moment for me.  I am the old person I critique in others…OMG – I am the one looking old!

I had to face the harsh truth – my face is getting so many wrinkles and lines that it looks like a road map (and not of a rural North Dakota county with only a handful of roads…oh no, I am talking a map of Chicago).  The skin doesn’t bounce back like it used to and what the heck is going on with my neck?  I made need to spend the rest of my days looking up at the sky to camoflauge that issue. 

Maybe I should have purchased that Linda Evans electric facial mask that I made fun of years ago (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXcYVh-W14E) or the really expensive facial serum that magically (over 60 days or so of constant use) makes you look ten or more years younger.  Maybe I should have been better with sunscreen or eaten a more vegetable intense diet.  Maybe I should have started looking around for a good plastic surgeon while I still lived in the kingdom of plastic surgery (Orange County, California).  Maybe all I need is to have my whole face pulled back toward my ears. 

One thing is for sure, I will need to stop focusing on how others are aging and pay more attention to myself.  Clearly, while I was so busy watching others age I got old myself.  There is some kind of poetic justice in the whole thing I am sure. 

But never fear, I am not throwing in the towel just yet.  Maybe I can get the Linda Evans eletric shock machine on eBay and try that out for a week or two.  It couldn’t be any worse than the shock I got when I realized how old my face actually looks. 😉

Day two hundred and thirty-one of the new forty – obla di obla da

CC