A Wrinkle In Time

This year I'm turning 37. I actually have to think about it, because I have honestly lost track. I don't feel 37. I don't even feel 36. OK, some days I feel like a 48, but those days are rare. Most days I feel like a 24.

Please don't misunderstand. I feel like I did when I was 24, but that doesn't mean I think I look 24. I look my age. The result is a confusing identity split, where I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and wonder who the heck it is. It couldn't be ME. I'm 24. Maybe 25 or 28.

Which is why I was so surprised this evening when I looked in the mirror and saw... A WRINKLE.

Now, I have laugh lines. I have those little lines in the corners of my eyes that get deeper when I smile or squint. But this... this was different. This was a deeper line right in between my eyebrows that didn't go away. Not even when I raised my eyebrows.

For a second I thought it might be a scar. Yes! That's what it was. A scar! From the time when I was a kid and ran into that chair and had to get stitches... wait, that wasn't me. That was my sister.

Once, during college theatre, I was in a play which required everyone to put "old" make-up on, which basically means we had to put on wrinkles. The director told us to raise our eyebrows and then put lines on the folds in our skin. When I followed his directions I ended up with a huge pair of second eyebrows over my existing eyebrows. But this new little line made it look like I spent all of m time frowning.

I ran into my own bathroom and looked in the mirror there. I could still see it, but it was much fainter. I ran back into the boys' bedroom. The wrinkle was there. I considered the possibility that the line between my eyebrows could only be viewed in that particular mirror. It's an odd mirror, after all. I't part of a dresser that belonged to my grandmother. Was this some sort of curse my grand mother put on me? She wouldn't do that, would she?

All of this happened in about two minutes. Then the boys came back into the room and I had to read books and put them to bed.

But this is it. I have a wrinkle. A real one. I am officially old.