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Sparkle (1)
While I got lucky in life on many fronts, aging slowly was not one of them.
Nine days shy of 40, my face is cracked and creased and increasingly mottled with age spots. There are long afternoons when I can almost feel the pull of gravity beneath my eyes and mornings when I startle at my own reflection. My insidesclosed shop two years ago, by some accounts a good decade ahead of schedule, and emptied my natural hormone tank.
When I first saw this photo of me with my Grandmother Josephine, I didn't see a robust, joyous woman celebrating her 95th birthday surrounded by family that adores her. I saw wrinkled cheeks, lines too numerous to count and eyes buried beneath skin folds. I saw time's muddy tracks across a face once considered pretty.
I saw that in me, not my grandmother. I thought she looked radiant.
I am not a woman frightened of 40, hung up on the number or even fearful of what it means for my future, my mortality. I'm ridiculously, profoundly, nauseatingly grateful for every morning I wake up and every night I lay my head on the pillow and close my eyes.
But I'm not so Zen that I'm not unsettled watching the aging process play out on my face. I'm fairly certain I'll never inject it, cut it or otherwise try to thwart nature's march. I don't want to stop or turn back time. I just want to learn to accept the effects of a long, hearty march.
Dana blogs at Feast After Famine.
