CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION

I have spent a lifetime furrowing my brow, not wearing sunglasses in the glaring sun, thinking intensely, and living in extended periods of frustration.  It shows.  You know the saying, “You are what you eat”?  My ever deepening crease between my eyes, in that space above the nose and where your eye brows should take a break from each other, shows the results of my entire opening sentence.  When a picture is taken of me I try to open my eyes even wider (going for more of a surprised look these days) which is my non-surgical attempt of lessening that furrow in my brow.   I have considered skin colored tinted wall spackle to fill it in.  It wouldn’t hold I’m sure.   I’ve given consideration to using that pink hair tape my mom used to keep her doo in place at night with.  Stretching it tautly from the bridge of my nose northward to my hairline, it would be my version of a quasi face lift, the equivalent of wearing a retainer nightly after braces.  But, I like Doug to find me attractive when I crawl in bed, so I suppose that won't work either!  Does Consumer Reports rank wrinkle creams?  I’m sure most are bunk, junk, and do little to quell the lines of age that show our trail of life in visual form.  I use them anyway.  Though I am wondering if the ones that say “deep wrinkle” as opposed to “wrinkle” really are any better.  I have dry skin.  Always have.  But, aging only intensifies that problem.  I have a 3 step lotion process daily.  My husband, while taking a shower behind our clear glass doors recently, was watching my lotion applications with great interest (ok well that could have been partly due to the face that I only had underwear on).  He asked what I was doing.  I shared with him that firstly I slather aloe lotion on most reachable parts of my body, face included.  Next, I follow up with a light bronzer moisturizer for my face.  And, finally I top off my emolliently laced skin with a retinal deep wrinkle cream for my face and neck (I do not want turkey neck as I age).  He smiled and I think I heard him giggle saying something like, “Well, babe I love to touch your skin.  But, I will love you when you are full of wrinkles just as much!”   My great grandmother had beautiful skin.  Even in her nineties she was devoid of many wrinkles.  She used creams on her face all her life.  In the last days of her life, she ran out of her favorite wrinkle cream. She asked my aunt to please get her more.  Knowing she only had a few days, my aunt filled that little bottle with some cream from her own house and brought it back to her.   Concerned  about what my grandmother and aunt would dress her in for her funeral casket display for her own funeral viewing, my great grandmother specified a blouse with a high ruffly collar to hide her neck wrinkles.  It must run in my blood – my disdain and battle to slow the effects of wrinkles on the skin.  I don’t know what I fret about so much.  If genetics play a role in how we age, and if I am blessed to get my great grandmother's, grandmother’s and aunt’s beautiful skin, I will be fine.  I still though am not stopping my slathering lotion routine just in case.