Youth is just a Dream

Ladies, do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and actually say out loud, to yourself, what happened to me? I mean, we look at ourselves every single day, whether we’re brushing our hair, applying make-up or simply brushing our teeth. So, it’s not that we don’t know what we look like on an average daily basis. But then there’s the day, that one day, that we actually SEE ourselves in that mirror and you’re just like – wow, when did that happen?

I’ve been binge’ing a show on Netflix for the past week or so called The Fosters. It has a fairly young cast of characters for the most part, and the other night, as I was watching, I caught myself just staring, being almost fascinated with, their skin, and lack of wrinkles, body tone, and quite frankly, their youth.

When you’re young, you never think about those things. Ever. You may think about your weight, how your body is proportioned, the color of your eyes or hair, or how a bathing suit looks on you – but you never think about the youth that you walk around with every single day. The fountain of youth you take granted.

It slips away in stages, so slowly, that you don’t really notice. Kind of like that those extra pounds you accumulate. I mean, you do know it, because 10-15 more pounds means a new pants size. But hey! What the heck is 10-15 pounds in 5 years’ time? What’s one dress/pants size increase? But then it becomes two, etc. etc.

Well it works the same with wrinkles and lines. First there is that little one around the corner of your eye. Which you tell yourself is alright, because your friends tell you that those are smile/laugh lines – which in turn means you’re happy. But pretty soon, one wrinkle equals three and what does that mean? You’re downright flipping hilarious now?

And for some of us, the lines around the top lip will start. I always thought those lines only belonged to smokers. Nope. I have smoked two cigarettes’ in my lifetime, and I was a dumb teenager then. So, we (I) begin to look for lip-filler on the cosmetic shelf – to “fill-in” the lines so my lipstick doesn’t gravitate to them and they start looking like I have a roadmap streaming from my mouth.

Then, there is the dreaded upper-arm sag. My mother will tell you that no woman worth her weight as a female will wear sleeveless tops after a “certain age” because arm flab/sag is just not attractive. She herself doesn’t even wear short-sleeved tops outside of her house, and I swear to sugar, I don’t see any on her arms, even at 77 years old.

Well I do have all of those things and while I don’t go sleeveless anymore, except in the back of a fishing boat, I do wear short sleeves, because menopause and uncontrollable hot flashes dictate my dress code.

Young ladies, please listen when I say, don’t smoke, stay out of the sun/tanning beds, moisturize it, SPF it, exercise it, and wear a good bra. Because that will be your next nightmare – a topic for another day.