You know you are old – or getting old – when the parts of your body that you worry about – if you’re prone to that sort of thing – are the small parts. Not the big parts or the soft parts, not the parts that have obviously changed shape or appearance from any distance, but the parts that no one else can really see.
Gone are the days when I am materially concerned with the shape of my ass, or the fat vs cellulite arguement going on in my jeans, or that my face might not be pretty enough for people to go fuck themselves. I care less about (mustache?) underarm hair and bikini waxes, and having a current pedicure is all but a bygone era. I have pretty much come to terms with my body and I love it for itself and dress it for today, not what it might be tomorrow or might never have been back in the day. Of course, peeps have probably seen the meme on facebook about wishing to be as thin as you were when you thought you were fat, ho ho ho. No, I am mostly done those old chestnuts.
These days (being not super old but having kids and mortgages and faux wisdom), freckles might change from cute to skin cancer after years of wasted youth swanning around in next to nothing, in next to no time. Eyebrows are mostly self-servicing now after years of plucking, so hair may or may not crop up in ears or noses (I’ll never tell) signaling the advance of time. But the bane of my lovely self these days is skin tags. What the hell, skin tags? Anywhere, anytime, anything touching my skin might be enough for one to pop up and itch or annoy. They bleed at the drop of a hat and are sort of unsightly as hell, even though they are really too small for other people to see them. I hope they are too small for other people to notice them. But they are there and don’t go away. Had a baby? Have a rash of skin tags, For The Rest Of Your Life. Got some body parts that come into contact regularly? Take a bunch and try not to draw attention to them by nonchalantly brushing them to make sure they are covered by your clothes, or just staring at them and wishing them out of existence. Sheesh. I might not prefer a pimple smackers in the middle of my face instead of skin tags, but I would easily accept the challenge of a one off, extra week of my period if I didn’t have to have skin tags, ever. Did anyone else talk about that sort of stuff in high school? Maybe just me *rocking the nonchalance right now*. Ok then.