I have three lines under my right eye. Creases. Folds. The first sign of the elastin - or is it collagen? - in my skin that is breaking down. This morning as I stood in the mirror I tugged at the side of my face with my middle finger, lifting the skin, so I could envision what I must have looked like before the lines appeared. What would it take to erase them? A facelift? Some botox? Injections? Lasers? I’m not sure what the appropriate procedure would cost, but I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.
Some of my friends are amused with my obsession with these three unforgiving lines, some will empathize, some are critical of what they think is purely vanity. But when I really think about it, while vanity surely plays a part, it’s insufficient to explain why I find this trio of folds so troublesome. Is it fear of getting old? Of impending death, getting closer with each subsequent crease? The truth is, every time I look in the mirror, they remind me that I’m losing time. Instead of a narrative on how much I have been through and survived, they serve as a painful reminder of everything I haven’t done. I’m almost thirty-one, and I didn’t expect to be here, now, like this. This wasn’t the plan. Somehow, I have veered inexplicably off course and ended up somewhere I don’t want to ever recognize.
This morning as I rode the train I listened to Dave Matthews’ Song #41, which I used to play constantly in college. I would lay on my blue and white flowered comforter, stare at the chipped white paint on the ceiling of my run - down off-campus apartment, and imagine all of the things I would do once I got out of Philadelphia and the confines of a campus that had begun to feel more and more like a trap. What had I hoped for then? To travel across Europe? To graduate at the top of my class from a top law school and make millions at a firm? To join the Peace Corps and live out my own little version of saving the world? I really haven’t a clue anymore. What I can remember quite clearly is hating how round my face was in pictures. "Don’t worry," my mother explained, "it will thin out with age." I’m at a loss to explain why that was of any comfort to me.
When I got off the subway and stepped into the sheets of morning rain, I pulled out my cell phone. My younger sister, as usual, didn’t answer. What to say to her on voicemail? What words could I use to explain? "Hillary," I mumbled, "you’re doing great. Appreciate it. Because one day...well...I think...you will wish you did." Not very eloquent, but an attempt, however feeble.
My sister rarely checks her messages. Usually, she just deletes them.
The other night I ordered Chinese food. I opened up the fortune cookie, which said "True happiness comes from being at peace with yourself." And it occurred to me that life is not so much sad as poignant.
