Wrinkles

I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and realized for the first time, I have my grandmother's neck. Not the neck of her youth, but her old woman neck. Today I put on flip flops for the first time in weeks. I looked at my feet. Wrinkles, lines, veins. I have had a pedicure recently. It's not dryness or anything, it is age.

And I look at my face and think, we live in a humid climate; hopefully, I will age well. But my grandmother lives here, and she did not.

I have told J that I want to have some "work" done, especially around the eyes or maybe some Botox. Not anytime soon, but later on. She says no. It scares me because I don 't want her to wake up one morning next to me and see an old woman. I don't know when that is going to happen, 10 years, 20 years, but it scares. the. hell. out. of. me. Not that she would dump me and go for a younger package, but just the thought of her thinking of me as old. I suppose I could go behind her back and stop someday on my way home from work for a Botox treatment, but I could never do that. It's such a Catch 22. She wants me to feel "good" about myself, but when I look in the mirror right now, I don't. Sometimes I feel like one big sagging wrinkle.

I took the gray out of my hair two months ago, but J probably could have cared less if I did it. She probably never will color her hair, and I admire her for that. But right now when I look at my hands and my feet and my face and the rest of my body, I wonder, "When did I start aging? It really snuck up on me. It really sucks."

I have always loved J's hands. When I was 17, I used to watch her put her car in gear with her hands. I loved watching her do that. Or throw dice when we played backgammon, or put butter on her food. I still love to watch her hands. They have aged a bit, but they are still so beautiful to me, the way they look, the way they move. Watching her "flip" her T-shirt before she puts it on, watching her get the water out of her hair with a towel, watching her stir something in the kitchen (which she does rarely, ha ha). I'm not sure she realizes how much I watch her hands. I know it sounds silly, but I become mesmorized with her hands, aged or not. Even the way she changes channels on the remote control or signs her signature for a credit card purchase. I almost look forward to the moment when she pays for dinner. Okay, I guess I have an obsession with her hands, but the point is that, even if her hands have aged a bit, they are still beautiful to me. Every spot or freckle that is new since I was with her before catches my attention, draws me closer to her, wanting to know her more, wanting to make up for all the years that we lost. Where was I when those spots on her hands appeared? From now on I plan to study her hands every day. From now on I won't miss a single aging moment.