One can dream...

We all have those moments that catch us off-guard; when we look in the mirror and don't quite grasp what we are seeing.  For some it's the grey hair, for others the bulges in places previously firm.  For me, it's the fine (and sometime more substantial) lines in my skin.  I understand it.  I spent years in the sun between swimming and life guarding and sunscreen was something we only used in the first month of summer.  I admit to being a sun worshipper, and even donned the baby oil to ensure that I browned up nicely on vacation and in the summertime.  I even worked at a tanning salon one winter, where the owners would actually advise me to use the tanning booths more, because I wasn't tan enough to be a good advertisement for them.  I have earned this skin, but it still surprises me. 
Then I remember, I am thirty-eight years old.  By my previous standards, I am pretty damn old.  I remember people older and wiser than I talking about this phenomenon; about not feeling as old as you are.  I think that the fact that I am in far better physical shape than I was in my younger years only enhances the deception for me.  In my twenties I was twenty or thirty pounds heavier than now.  I was athletic but I also ate and drank with abandon.  Now I pay closer attention to what I consume, and working out has become more than a passing hobby.  I have achieved athletic pursuits in my thirties that I never thought possible in my twenties, and I feel great.  I feel much younger than thirty-eight, but my skin does not lie.

I was putting make-up on in my bathroom one morning with Isabel by my side, and again I noticed her gorgeous skin.  Isabel's skin is smooth and olive toned and flawless.  The only thirty-eight year-olds that I know who have skin like that are on billboards or in magazines, where women's skin resembles that of someone half their age.  I don't think I ever had skin as pretty as these women, some of them much older than me.  Did they miss out on the sun worshipping that was en vogue in 1988?  Or have they had work done to turn back the hands of time? 

I know that we women tend to be our greatest critics, and when I reflect on the changes I have made to my health and my body in the last fifteen years I am proud.  But seriously.  I just want my skin to look like Isabel's.  Is that really too much to ask?