crinkles

As I've been on the slow climb towards turning thirty (which is still a couple birthdays away) I've been paying a little more attention to my skin and skin care routine. I try to remember to wash my face, even though I forget more often than I remember. I have some amazing moisturizer that I try to use at least a couple of times a week. I've switched to a slightly more expensive make up brand, at least for my foundation, because it's better for my skin and has an SPF. (Plus, I like their stuff.)

I keep paying attention because everyone tells you about growing old and wrinkles and the fact that a little bit of time spent taking care of my skin now will one day payoff is more elastic, less wrinkly, more even skin. Because I'm supposed to care about wrinkles and dry skin and even if I don't care right now one day I will.

I think I've finally identified my first wrinkle. Like a wrinkle that stays even when I'm not distorting my face. A wrinkle that's just there no matter what I do. Just under the outer corner of my eyes, there is a wrinkle and it won't go away.

What's so confusing about this wrinkle is that I feel like I should be upset about it. But I'm not. I feel like I should care that I have a wrinkle. But I don't. It's just there, doing its own thing and its not a big deal. My skin has a little fold that didn't used to be there and it's not going to go anywhere. It may even make me look older. I just don't care.

Maybe it's that I married an older man and that's made me more comfortable with the aging process. Maybe it's that there aren't enough of the wrinkles yet for me to be concerned. Maybe the fifth wrinkle is the one that will make me cry about getting older. Maybe I've escaped from the idea that being, and looking, young is inextricably bound up in my worth as a woman. I'd like to think that's what it is, but who knows.

How do you react to "visible signs of aging" (as all the commercials like to say)? Do they bother you at all, or are you ok with the aging process?