A Wrinkle In Time

The other day I was looking in the mirror and I happened to smile at something my cat was doing.

And then I saw them.

There, by my eyes.

LAUGH LINES.

Please note the complete refusal to call them wrinkles. THEY ARE NOT WRINKLES. They are LINES. From LAUGHTER. Which, you know, on the one hand, I am totes okay with because laughter is one of my favorite things.

On the other hand, lines – on my FACE – are NOT one of my  favorite things.

So, as I am wont to do, I freaked out a little bit.

Listen, I don’t generally think of myself as vain. (This may be delusional, but it’s what I’m rolling with.) I don’t own a full length mirror because I don’t, in fact, care. I don’t actually spend a lot of time looking in the “just for your face” mirror either, unless I’m putting makeup on because, well, you don’t want to poke yourself in the eye with one of those pencils.  And while I do wear make up, it’s more because it’s fun to fuss with than any other “look at me I’m so Beeeeyoootiful” deal.

However, I was NOT down with the laugh lines. Because while there are things I do appreciate on my face (eye shadow! Lipstick! The stud in my nose!), lines are NOT on the “welcome to the party” list.

I recently had to toss all of my skin care products because, as it turned out, they were not only NOT making my skin dewy and glowy and youthful, they were, in fact, the source of the rash from hell. So there I was, aging like nobody’s business and with nothing helpful to smear in the crevasses that were rapidly forming near my eyeballs.

That was when I turned to modern science and the very nice aesthetician at my salon. She got a VERY bright light. And a magnifying glass. And she stared. And stared. And murmured to herself and wrote things down. And I, of course, tried to keep my eyebrows still (because, okay, in addition to laugh lines, I may also have a “my eyebrows think that I need to use them as punctuation and leap about my face when I speak” crease or two or three) but I kind of wanted to draw them together in consternation because, dude, that was a very bright light and I wasn’t sure I was up for the final verdict.

Finally, the light went out. “Well,” she said.

I braced for the “We’re going to want to resurface your face, and inject things into it, and here are four gagillion dollars worth of products that you’re going to need to buy, lest you wake up tomorrow with the face of a pruney hag.”

“You need to drink more water,” she said finally.

“What?” This was NOT what I expected.

“A lot of these? From dehydration,” she said kindly.

“Oooh.”

So yes, I have laugh lines – and the forehead furrow – because those come from age. But I also have “Drink more water, stupid,” lines.  Somehow, this does not strike me as awesome.

Getting older is HARD, y’all. How am I supposed to keep up with these things?