Transformation
I looked a bit closer in the mirror. I wanted to weep at first, then smash the mirror. When did this happen? I could clearly see the traces along the sides of my eyes, little creases spraying out from the edge of my eyes. Now I understood where the term “crows feet” came from, except mine looked like chicken feet.
I looked further down my face, and winced when I saw the lines finely etched along my mouth. It seemed to me like there were hundreds, nay, thousands of railroad tracks striping down my face. The image of an elephants butt came to mind.
Why was it so hard to accept the fact that I was aging? It isn’t as though I didn’t know it was going to happen someday, I just didn’t know “someday” would come so damn quickly. I have always heard women complaining about their wrinkles, and yet I though they all looked fine to me. I never understood why that aspect of aging bothered them so much when there were so many other worse aspects to concern themselves with!
I thought about the past ten or more years, living with various aches and pains that I hadn’t had before, each one a bit more persistent than the last. I remembered when I started having problems with my ears, and turning the T.V. up louder with each passing year. The only way I really noticed it was when I would climb back in the car, or turn on the T.V. again at night and it would blare out at me from the relative silence of the room, scaring the crap out of me. I would then turn it down, yet slowly begin increasing the volume once I started dinner because I couldn’t hear it.
Same with the car; I would get in after running into the bank, or the market, and the radio would scream at me, giving me a coronary. Who got into my car while I was gone and cranked up the volume? I will KILL them! It always took a few minutes for my heart to stop jack-hammering and my ears to stop buzzing.
I turned my attention back to the mirror. Well, they weren’t crevasses yet, and I smirked at the thought of someone running a gondola from one side to the other to traverse their murky depths. How many people really see me up that close anyway? My kids, my husband, who wouldn’t notice a freight train bearing down on him in the bright light of day, maybe a co-worker or two, but no one else really.
I leaned back from the mirror, then reached for my lotion. I knew I could spackle these cracks with the right stuff! I rubbed it in good. Now the transformation was complete. I could go out into the world safe until tomorrow morning.
Copyright J.George 9/2008
