My Giant Face Wrinkle
It’s all over.
I don’t know how or when it showed up, but it did. I guess it must have happened slowly over time, but for some reason it felt very sudden. A giant vertical wrinkle going down the middle of my face, right between my eyes.
I can’t stop looking at it, every single morning I look in the mirror and just stare at it as I brush my teeth. It is absolutely insane. How did this happen? When did I get old?
A few years ago I started getting crow’s feet around my eyes. This freaked me out a little bit, but now they are nothing. This new guy is right down the middle of my face, for the world to see. Between my eyebrows, front and center. And it does not just show up when I smile, it is just ever present. Like an annoying little brother who wants to keep hanging out or news about Donald Trump.
It has really spiraled me in a way that , I admit, is over-dramatic. I thought about how little I have accomplished on my time on Earth. How much I still have to do. I thought about all the time I have wasted and all the relationships I have sabotaged.
I start thinking about how I should have listened to my mom and worn more sunscreen. About how I should have listened to my mom more in general. About how I don’t visit her enough. She’s not getting any younger either.
Will I ever get into another relationship? Am I so unlovable? Will this wrinkle make dating harder? Will girls just be staring right between my eyebrows on every first date I go on from now on?
What are my values? Should I get botox? Some wild correctice surgery where they stretch my skin out? When did I become this vain? I shouldn’t care about a wrinkle this much, why do I care so much? People should like me for the me on the inside, right? That’s certainly the values that the Disney Channel tried to instill into me.
I should work harder. I’m slowly turning into a shriveled prune and I still haven’t published that novel. How soon am I going to be dirt in the ground. Should I be cremated or be buried? When do people start to make these decisions? I don’t know but I assume it is around wrinkle age.
I should have been kinder to people. I regret making for of that kid in middle school for crying. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m the one crying now. You can make fun of me all you want. Point at my wrinkle and laugh, I deserve it.
This goes on for a while before I finally snap out of it. I’m glad this happened to me alone in my bathroom. Me just standing there, staring at myself in the mirror for an hour… If anyone say me, they probably would have thought I was losing my mind. And to an extent they would have been right.
But I calm down and remind myself that it is just a wrinkle. It happens. You are in your thirties. You are supposed to get wrinkles. Stop living in a fantasy world where you are still twenty-one. Come back to reality where time passes and that’s okay. In fact, it is more than okay. It is great! You wouldn’t want to be twenty-one forever, that would be awful. That guy was an idiot. What a blessing it is to grow older and wiser! I should be thrilled to have this wrinkle, I should let it be a badge of honor. A symbol on my face that represents the life I’ve lived and the growth I’ve gone through!
I ride this high for about three minutes until I see another mirror and go through the entire cycle all over again.
