The lines on my forehead are becoming more pronounced, and a few crow’s feet dance at the corners of my eyes.  I have sun damage “discoloration” on my cheeks.  I’ve noticed more blue veins in my legs than I used to see.  More than any other area, my hands don’t look like mine any more.  They are all crinkly.  It’s really dry here, and yes, what They say is right, the sun does do a number on exposed skin.

So, I ask myself, do I attempt to whip back these signs of the inevitable, lion tamer-esque,  or do I let them carry me on down the river of aging?  I admit to coloring the greys for quite a few years now.  But somehow, it hasn’t occurred to me to do something about the other stuff until recently.

I don’t have to have soooo many wrinkles in my forehead quite yet.  I could Botox them into motionless submission.  I could zap the veins in my legs, laser my cheeks, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I don’t see a problem with any of it in any sort of philosophical way.  We do things all the time to look different, why not nip and tuck a bit?

What has prevented me from taking any affirmative action in this direction is not a moralistic high ground, but a lack of energy.  It takes time to make the appointments (not to mention cash), and I just haven’t gotten around to it, much like my mammogram that I should have gotten a few months ago.  I know, I know, I’ll do it next week.  I do manage to get to the dentist every 6 months, I think because the necessity of that particular time frame was drilled (ha!) into me from a very young age.

And so, when the topic of wrinkles came up a while back with my son, his reaction to my possibly injecting something into my skin was a bit of a shock.  He wasn’t just opposed to it.  He was close to apoplectic.  “How could you even think of doing that, Mom?  I will disown you. (HA!)”  As far as I can tell, he views this as some sort of fraud, that I’ll be pretending to be something I’m not.

I began to wonder about this.  Why do I care?  Like Popeye, I yam what I yam.  I guess vanity gets the better of me?  But why not look “my best” from here until the end?  My grandma wore a wig.  My entire life I never saw her without it.  She was highly concerned that she have it on when she died, lest anyone would see her exposed, so to speak.  What’s wrong with that?  She lived well into her 80’s, stood at least 8 inches shorter due to osteoporosis, and wore old lady sandals and polyester dresses, but, bless her, she had her wig on when she died.