bodyart       Colonial Beach, Virginia        20 days till my birthday.

Yeah, my username doesn't bother me, neither does where I live, it's the 20 friggin days until my birthday that is scary. (Family and friends, see my wish page, or my contact page, for my out of town friends, ahem, 20 shopping days left.)

20 days until I'm 29.  And that's 29 for the first time, not the second or subsequent.  I can't believe that, I feel 15, hell, I act 12, there is no way I'm almost 29 years old.  

Actually, my hair is telling me otherwise, I have several white motherfucking hairs poking out of my hairline at the very front.  I found them a week or two ago, flipped out and bought hair dye.  The dye boxes are sitting on my night stand haunting me, waiting for me to get off my lazy ass and actually do it.  

Not only is my hair betraying me, so is my skin.  I have a couple of lines here or there are couple of laugh lines, a tiny crow seems to have danced around my eyes.  Now, I have a real moisturizer instead of just lotion.  My face is the Sahara and I need more than a drop of water, now I need the friggin' Atlantic.  

Yesterday, I was washing my hands and they felt different, it seems that my hands are now getting in on the getting older act.  The skin is thinning on them, they're not the hands of a teenager any longer.  I lotion my hands more than I ever did before, fighting the process, fighting the past more than anything.

You see, I live in a beach town, where there is sand and water and sun. As teenagers we didn't listen to what they said about sunscreen. Oh, no we laid out, coated in baby oil, until our skin was as deep a color as possible.  Every 15 minutes we would flip, as if a pancake, and recoat our skin.

Day after day we did this.  Sun worshipping was stupid, I know this, now.  As I watch more and more moles appear.  Ones that I have to watch to make sure they don't turn into cancerous growths.  And I watch people still lay for hours every summer, day after day, basting in the sun.  Teenage girls are still comparing arms, in hopes that they are the darkest.

Insanity and I did it for years.  Not anymore, this almost 29 year old stays out of the sun. When I have no choice, I coat myself in two inches of 8,000,000 SPF sunscreen.  Not only do I have skin to protect, but ink.  Tattoo pigments will fade in the sun and I will not have it.

If only I was 14 and realizing all of this, instead of barrelling towards 29.  I wouldn't look older than I am, nor would I have people calling me a cradle robber because my husband has the skin of a 17 year old, only without the acne.  He is babyfaced, without the beard, he's carded for everything.  It seems he was allergic to the sun as a child, having to cover up in long clothing, hats and sunscreen.  Sure it sucked when he was little, but now, he's 30 and no one believes him.

As for the birthday (remember April 21st :) I can deal with getting older, hell, it's better than the alternative.  29 just sounds so much more adult than 28, so much closer t0 the dreaded 30.  I'm hoping everyone who has told me that their 30s were/are much better than the 20s is right. A decade of good, would be nice.
 

Smile,
Suzy Smith