Finding the Positive in Wrinkles

    Today as I waited in the drive-thru for my ice cream salad I looked ahead and noticed the girl working the window.  It was a girl that I graduated from high school with.  What was so shocking to me is that she looked EXACTLY the same as I remembered back in high school.  Now let me go ahead and confess that I have been out of high school for thirty - yes, 30 years.  Her hair was a beautiful shiny auburn, if it was from a box you'd never know.  Every hair was in place even as the wind blew!  Her complexion was creamy white and she was strikingly beautiful. 
     As I continued to wait, I raised my eyebrows to take a peek at myself in the rear view mirror.  There it was - the wrinkle just above my right eye.  I like to refer to it as "The Earthquake".  It's kinda like a backwards comma, deep and long.  I'm not sure exactly when it got so distinct, but it is there, and by this time of day, caked with make-up.  Not a good look.  I take my fingers and try to stretch it out, but no luck.  Then I notice the "laugh lines" around my mouth.  I fake a smile and see if they'll disappear but again, no such luck.  For added fun, I noticed a pimple on my cheek.  What am I?  14 or 49?  My hands grip the steering wheel and I notice my skin looks sorta dry and spotty.   My chubby fingers that my mama always said I would "outgrow" were as chubby as ever. Apparently mama was wrong - or probably she was just trying to be kind.   I begin to feel a mid-life crisis coming on right there at the Chick Fil A.  My heart starts to pound.  Crap!  Am I gonna have a heart attack right here?  I've never been a very vain person, but secretly I begin to wonder if my ageless, pretty class mate ever had children.  Blaming my kids on my gray hair always worked, so why not these wrinkles?  ;0)
     By this time, I am face to face with my old but beautiful high school pal and realize that I can't change a thing.  Yes, I have this pimple and wrinkles and I have ordered an ice cream salad in the middle of the afternoon.  All this causes me to think.
      I decided right then and there I just as well embrace my imperfections.  As a matter of fact, being the positive person that I am, I am going to find the good in them.  So, here's my thought.  If "The Earthquake" came about due to me squinting my eyes in the sun on my favorite beach in the whole wide world (Panama City Beach) then let it be.  The fact that I left my sunglasses back in the hotel room because those kids of mine were driving me crazy explains my forgetfulness.  See, I told you I can blame anything on being a mama. 
     If the laugh lines came from me laughing at my kids, grand baby boy, crazy friends, family, etc. then may they multiply.  Nobody loves to laugh more than I do.  I truly believe laughter adds years to your life - so may I laugh until I am very old and covered in lines. 
     I know for a fact that my hands are all wrinkled up because I use scalding hot water when I wash dishes.  Where's the positive in that, you ask?  Well... Praise the Lord I have dishes to wash.  I love every minute of cooking for my sweet family and cleaning up is just part of that.  Plus I think I have a touch of obsessive compulsive behavior and feel strongly that only the hottest water can kill the germs! 
     I am thankful for my chubby but otherwise functional fingers, and I am just happy they work correctly.  They have let me hack out a living working on a computer of some kind for the past 25 years.  Not to mention the hands I've held, the hugs, the love, massages, tickles, and praise they've allowed to give.  As for the pimple, well . . .  I got nothing.  Sorry, I said I was trying to be positive, not perfect! 

    When I smiled and paid my friend I told her how great she looked.   She laughed it off and said she'd be turning 50 soon. "Me too!"  I told her, and then she said something I won't soon forget.  She said "I kind of like getting older."  "Me too" I said again.  As I drove off I realized I wouldn't go back to my younger days even if I could.  However, if I could, maybe I would use that moisturizing cream more faithfully and I'd remember my sunglasses.