some throwback notes...June 21, 2007

I have finally admitted to myself, in secret, that I am getting old. I am ony 32, but I feel more like 58, and I think I look like I could be in my 40's. I groan when I get up in the morning, my back stiff from the day before. I need 2 cups of coffee before I am even midway functional, and I get heartburn very very easily.Since when did I start to have errant hairs growing out of MY CHIN?? That is just horrible! And apparently I have inherited the gene for extra hairiness from my biological father (thanks a lot dad) so my legs seem to get hairier every year, and my upper lip is taking on an odd shade every month or so - thank God for the invention of Jolene bleach and razors or I fear I would look a little like CHeech and CHong.....Speaking of hairy legs, I just realized the other day that the hair on the back of my thighs grows in every possible direction - not in some nice uniform direction which would make it easy for shaving, but in ALL directions, so no matter which way I shave I never seem to get all of it. And if you are asking yourself why I am shaving the backs of my thighs, it is because I was so excited to start shaving my legs as an adolescent that I decided I would shave ankle to hip.....ugh what a mistake - now I have to continue this habit or I turn into a Yeti. And no one, especially my husband, wants to sleep beside a yeti.I have always had very dark circles under my eyes (thanks again dad) but now they seemed to be paired by puffiness and -GASP-..........could it be???.....wrinkles!!! How is it possible that I have wrinkles? Like I am getting this funky crease right between my eyebrows from when the sun is too bright and I squint, and I have 3 parallel wrinkles across my forehead, and wrinkles from my nose to my chin, from smiling too much (as if that were even possible). Is it possible that I need to start buying all those lotions and potions that I see lining the shelves of my local pharmacy? I wouldn't even know where to begin?? And how is it possible to have wrinkles AND acne? It is like a clash of generations, my forehead is a gramma but my t-zone is still a pubescent adolescent! I am not very good at facial routines, even reaching the height of laziness by wiping my face off with a baby wipe at night to clean up whatever miscellaneous substance happens to have fallen there. When you wake up well before dawn, and then come home to little people and stay there all day, rare is the occasion when you breakout the lipliner and smoky eyeshadow. So the closest I get to a facial is when Jack hurls oatmeal at me. My butt has disappeared. Not that I ever really had an ample ba-donk-a-donk butt (thanks mom) but I cherished what butt I had. The only time it has ever gotten bigger is when I was pregnant, and even then it only grew wider, not more ample. Well I supposed my butt has now retaliated on me, the skin saying "oh forget this, I have been stretched out so many times, I know if I go back to my normal position, she is just going to have another kid again". Now a side profile looks like a straight line from my neck to my ankles (well not really, but you get the point).I have cellulite and stretch marks where I never thought possible....and now I have the dreaded "wings" under my arms (another genetic gift from mom). I have very muscular arms from all the sweeping, mopping, and various mom-duties that I do, but apparently the back of my arms have not noticed this. If I raise my arms to clap, all I can think about is the wings flapping in the breeze....oh man I am getting old for sure.And when did I get back fat? Back fat I tell you. It is like a roll, or fold of skin running from somewhere near my inner shoulder blades towards my hips. THis is a completely new thing for me, and now that I have discovered it, I cannot stop noticing it. How do you "target" this zone in your workout? How on earth did fat migrate to my BACK of all places? It makes bras look uncomfortable ......and forget about bikinis, I gave up hope of wearing one of those long ago - after I had my first son* and realized my body had taken on mom-traits.* - I have a horrible tendency to put on EXTREME amounts of weight when I am pregnant....its like I forget that I am eating for 2, not 22. My pregnancies have been 88lb weight gain, 64lb weight gain, and 84lb weight gain. I desperately hoped that the baby and placenta and stuff actually weighed a good 50 lbs, but alas, it was not so. My poor poor body, I am amazed it cooperates with me at all.Now this may seem obsessive to some, but I now feel that my hands and feet look old too. My toes are starting to go crooked (from too many nights wedging my toes into too-tight platforms and dancing the night away at some bar) and I actually have age spots on my hands!!! They (my hands) are wrinkled and scarred. I have labourer hands, with callouses and cuts, hangnails and peeling nailpolish. I look at ladies with beautifully french-manicured finger tips, and sigh a sigh only a manual labour mom would understand. If I got a manicure now, I would be lucky if I made it home from the salon before it was ruined.And lastly, my hair. I have grey in it. Not a light sprinkling of it, but a big chunk or patch of it. Can I blame it on my kids? No, I am afraid not, I had it before any of them arrived. No doubt they made it bigger but they alone did not cause it. I have stopped colouring my hair (partly because I forgot what my natural colour was) so this only lets the grey patch show even more. I lovingly refer to it as my "skunk stripe".Can it be true? Can I really be getting this old? Was it all the time I spent in the sun? Was it the many packs of cigarettes I smoked? Was it living the hard life all those years ago?Only God knows. The only thing good about all of this is as I age physically, I seem to mature spiritually. "I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be" (Joyce Meyers)Thats it for today folks - the sun is a-shinin' and calling my name, and I figure hey- the damage is done now, right? Might as well slap on some SPF 30 and enjoy yourself while you are here, wrinkles and all