Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? (4 page)

What if ‘‘Hokey Pokey’’ really is what it’s all about?
—saying on a T-shirt

9
Tan Your Hide

Speaking of tans, I watched a television commercial today for a new instant tanning cream. The pitch seemed to be aimed at those of us who want younger looking skin and are willing to pay three payments of $39.95 each for it. The spokesperson said that a nice golden tan is the secret to looking younger. Face-lifts, laser surgery, and even duct tape were not the answer.

It seems the sun, nature’s usual tanning device, does a good job of browning our skin, but it also tends to age it. Harmful sunrays can damage skin so much that instead of our looking younger we actually end up looking older.

The commercial said tanning beds can be harmful to our skin, as well. They didn’t have to spend too much airtime talking me out of that. I don’t think I’d ever resort to a tanning bed. I’d feel too much like a croissant going into an oven, and since I know all too well what happens to croissants in my oven, I know I’m better off passing on that.

So what’s the answer? Well, according to this advertisement, the answer is simple—their instant tanning cream, at $39.95 a month for three months. That’s a lot of money, but I’m tempted to order it anyway.

My natural skin tone has always been Clown White, and it’d be fun to have some color for a change. (I’m on the list for a tan transplant, but so far there haven’t been any donors.)

So I suppose an instant tanning cream is the only way to go. I just hope they’ve improved since the days when I was a teenager. I tried one back then and it turned my skin a beautiful shade of Tang orange. I don’t think I want to be orange again. It really isn’t my color.

But the ad said their instant tanning cream wouldn’t do that. In fact, not only did it make those swimsuit-clad fifty-year-old men and women look younger, it also gave them the energy to play a round of beach volleyball. That’s some tanning cream!

And while we’re on the subject of swimsuits, why doesn’t someone make a style that those of us over forty would actually wear? I for one don’t like pleats. My skin already has enough pleats; why would I want them in my beachwear? I don’t like plunging necklines, either. Enough of me is plunging on its own. And who told anyone that black is the favorite color of those over forty? Our skin might not fit anymore but we’re not in mourning over it.

But first things first. No matter what kind of swimsuit I wear, I still need a tan, so I’ve decided to go ahead and order the tanning cream. And if it doesn’t work this time, and I still turn orange, well, I guess that’s okay. I live in Tennessee, and orange is one of the colors of the Tennessee State University football team!

Go, Vols!

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
—2 Corinthians 4:16, NIV

10
InfomercialParadise

Some say the older you get the less sleep you need. At fifty, you might be getting by on only six or seven hours of sleep. By the time you reach sixty, four or five hours may be all you need. Get to seventy, and not only are you staying awake at night watching every infomercial on television, you’re probably squeezing in a 3:00 A.M. trip to the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart, too.

One reason we require less sleep as we grow older could be all the naps we take throughout the day. I’m not talking about those after-lunch comas that hit people of all ages. I’m talking about that uncontrollable dozing off that seems to hit middle-aged people without warning. It’s that overwhelming urge to get in a few winks, whether you’re having a root canal, talking on the telephone, or running for a bus.

My husband takes a lot of naps. He can sleep virtually anywhere, but his lounging areas of choice are the sofa, the easy chair, the car, the floor, the pew, airline seats, the desk at business meetings, and once in a while, the bed. He can get by on a twenty-minute nap here, a thirty-minute nap there, and only four or five hours of sleep at night.

Another reason we sleep less as we grow older is because we know the party’s almost over and we don’t want to miss out on a single thing. It’s the same reason football fans stay at the game until the very end, even when their team’s losing 49–0. It’s why people don’t sleep through the last fifteen minutes of a good movie. They’re afraid they’ll miss the best part.

Do the math. If we’re in our forties now and are lucky enough to have the genes to make it to our eighties, our lives are already half spent. We should be savoring these days, hours, minutes, even seconds, not sleeping through them. Who wants to oversleep and wake up just in time to hear, ‘‘Your life will be closing in ten minutes. Please take all your purchases to the nearest counter and exit through the main doors on your left’’?

Life’s too important to snooze our way through it. There’s too much to do, too much to see, too much to be a part of. If the food processor they’re featuring on that 3:00 A.M. infomercial really does dice, slice, chop, mince, puree, and provide therapeutic counseling for my vegetables, I want to know about it. If there’s a store open twenty-four hours within a ten-mile radius of my house, I’m going to be out there in the wee hours of the morning supporting it. After all, the people working in the twenty-four-hour Wal-Marts and Kmarts, all-night restaurants, and gas stations are no doubt just like us. They’re trying to stretch every moment they’ve got left, too. I think ‘‘Attention Kmart shoppers’’ has a subliminal message. It’s a code for ‘‘Life’s too short. Stop and smell the roses . . . in our Garden Center at the rear of the store, for $12.98 a dozen.’’

Time is going to steadily tick by—ticktock, ticktock—and there’s nothing we can do to stop it or slow it down. If we’re going to live this life to its fullest, and if we’re going to do the work that God has for us to do, we need to do it now, not later—today, not tomorrow. After all, we don’t want to get to the pearly gates and have to stand before God and say, ‘‘Sorry, Lord, I was sleeping. Can you tell me what it was I missed?’’

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
—Anonymous

11
Making Memories, Not Regrets

My mother dreamed her whole life of going to Washington, D.C. Almost every summer my family traveled from our home in California to Arkansas, where my grandparents lived. One of those summers we probably could have driven up to Washington, D.C., and fulfilled her lifelong dream, but we never did. For whatever reason (no doubt financial), she denied herself that pleasure.

When my father passed away, the one regret I had was that I had not taken him on more trips. So after his death, I made a vow to myself that my mother would see Washington, D.C. Fulfilling that dream didn’t come easy. I had to save the money, make adjustments to my work schedule, book all the necessary flights and hotels, and—hardest of all—get Mother to agree to the vacation. She thought she couldn’t take that much time off work. I tried to convince her that she could, but when that didn’t work, I called her boss and arranged for her to have the time off, then basically ‘‘kidnapped’’ her.

We had a wonderful time visiting the White House, the Capitol, the FBI headquarters, Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian, and just about everything else there is to see there. And although the trip took some extra effort and planning, it was well worth it. The pictures and memories I have of our time together are irreplaceable.

After that trip, I planned as many weekend jaunts with my mom to as many different places as I could. These trips quickly became a highlight of both our lives.

A few years ago I decided to fulfill one of my own lifelong dreams. I had always wanted to see the Indian dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado. Using the same strategy I had used with my mother, I decided I was going to
make
it happen. I would create my own memories instead of waiting for them to come to me. I saved the money, made the arrangements, and soon my family and I were standing among Indian ruins. Seeing those dwellings gave me a sense of completeness. Once again I had made a memory instead of a regret.

Life is unpredictable. My mother’s life came to an end before any of us expected. She was seventy-two and, except for the lymphoma, which had only appeared eight months before, she had hardly been sick a day in her life. I miss her terribly, but every time I run across my pictures of our trips together, they remind me of a few of her dreams that I didn’t allow to die with her.

Where is it that you’ve always wanted to go? What is it you’ve always wanted to do? Is there some place you’ve longed to take a loved one? Quit making excuses. Make plans, make the sacrifices, and do it!

Life is made up of ever so many partings welded together.
—Charles Dickens

12
Gravy Is Not a Food Group

It doesn’t matter how many deep-fried onion rings we’ve consumed over the years, how many pecan pies we’ve inhaled, or how much gravy we’ve allowed to dam up our arteries, when we pass forty, all of a sudden we become obsessed with eating healthy foods. We don’t necessarily change our diet, but we become obsessed with the
idea
of changing it.

It’s all those public service announcements that start getting to us:

Ben thought he was going to live forever. He believed he was invincible. He was convinced his fatty, cholesterol-filled, salt-laden diet wasn’t hurting him. Ben was wrong. At forty-three, he now has to work at home. His desk at his job wasn’t equipped to handle the life-support apparatus. Don’t be like Ben. Don’t wait until it’s too late to make those lifestyle changes you’ve been wanting to make. Unless, of course, you’ve got a bigger desk than Ben.

We hear Ben gasp for breath in the background as he reaches for that last bag of potato chips.
Gasp, crunch, gasp,
crunch
. It’s enough to drive anyone to the treadmill.

Health food stores play on our fears, too. They convince us to buy extracts of vegetables we didn’t even know existed and make us believe that if pureed and blended together, they’re somehow going to taste better. They don’t. I’m sorry, but a rutabaga-leek-broccoli-cauliflower swirl is still going to taste pretty much like rutabagas, leeks, broccoli, and cauliflower. A blender and crushed ice isn’t going to make them taste like a hot fudge sundae.

But we also know that our bodies need those vitamins, minerals, and, of course, the roughage. The older we get, the more maintenance our bodies require. After forty-plus years, we’ve had one too many medical tests that show exactly where all that fat we’ve been consuming over the years has deposited itself. We’ve seen the ultrasounds, the echocardiograms, the Post-it Notes on our medical reports. We know the blood in our arteries and veins isn’t flowing like it did in our youth. We’re not fools. Nor are we suicidal. We know if we’re going to make it to a ripe old age, we’ve got to make some changes in our eating habits. We’ve got to start thinking of that cheesecake as the enemy instead of our reward for doing those three push-ups. We need to start reaching for that bowl of stewed prunes instead of that leaning tower of brownies. And instead of ordering the fried mozzarella sticks, we need to take a second look at those alfalfa sprouts and tofu squares. (Maybe we don’t have to go so far as to eat them, but we should at least give them a second look.)