Silver Hairs and Wrinkles

Aging paints a pretty tale on our face, recounting so many stories from everyday life. Keely learns to love the fold and embraces her new found wrinkle for all that it’s worth…

I’ll admit it – I have a wrinkle. (Mind you, I may have more than that, but I’m only admitting to ONE.)

It’s not the faintest of crow’s feet – no, those (if they exist) are due to neglect and are rather shameful. (Note to early twenties Keely from early thirties Keely: Take off your damn makeup before bed! Your future husband does NOT believe you look that good upon waking… and our hope is that he’ll marry you anyhow and eventually find out the hideous truth.)

It’s also not the stretch marks due to my first pregnancy. Because those sure as heck are NOT to be acknowledged, if and when they ever happened or will happen. Which they won’t. Especially not this second time around.

No, I’m talking about the badge of honor between my brows, the slight vertical line that seems to be etched in Sharpie since becoming a wife and mother. Strangely, this is the first sign of aging I’ve truly admitted – and embraced.

Why? Because it’s a mark of bravery for all of those times I watch as my daughter cannonballs to the grass. Goes down the slide way too fast. Spoons soup somewhere in the general vicinity of her mouth. I furrow the top part of my face to keep myself from reaching out and grabbing, fixing, doing it the “right” way. For I know there’s nothing more annoying – and stunting – than never being allowed to hold a crayon upside down.

It also represents my marriage. My eyebrows come together whenever I feel like my husband shouldn’t have merged into that lane just then. Or paired Nora’s brown velour pants with her red and blue tank top. And it happens when I’m seconds from blurting out the incredibly hurtful – and indubitably correct – comeback in a fight. In P.J.’s case, that little wrinkle keeps my mouth firmly shut.

This teensy tiny sign of aging is something I’ll happily take. It’s symbolic of skills and knowledge I couldn’t even have dreamed of possessing a decade ago.

This wrinkle makes me a better human being.

But that silver hair? Yeah, that’s gotta die.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 7:54 am. It is filed under Beauty + Style, Motherhood and tagged with Aging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.