Why I Want to Lose My Battle Against My Aging Skin

And credit the two writers who helped me change my perspective.

Count your blessings if you can’t zoom into this photo and follow the contrails along my face and neck. That’s me about four weeks ago in my office after getting the bulk of my hair cut off. I took the selfie to send to my husband because the haircut was an impetuous decision.

I took several selfies and decided on this one, but still. Those wrinkles. Those fine lines. That sagging skin. I’ve never been very attractive except to those who love me, but I’ve always been vain. The aches and pains I’ve been beset with over the last two years, due mostly to arthritis, are nothing compared to the pain in my heart whenever I look at myself in the mirror. Mercilessly I examine the cellulite around my butt and thighs, the mysterious little white bumps that dot my décolletage, the loose skin around my neck.

I was a skinny kid until turning ten years old, when I found myself inside a chubby body. At the time I was loathe to exercise and feasted on sugar. I suffered the humiliation of being sent to a special after-school program for kids who failed P.E. class. [That’s right. In my day, kids not only had to take physical education classes but also had to pass them with a “Satisfactory” grade.]

By the end of the program, I still couldn’t do a chin-up, but I had gained a boyfriend. Sadly, we had to end our relationship since his family was Catholic and mine wasn’t. True story … but I digress.

That after-school program made me painfully mindful of my body and how others perceived it. Soon I was eating “like a bird” (the common complaint by my mother and friends’ mothers) and my weight dropped off. By the time I was 14 and stood about 5'3", my goal was to weigh 100 pounds. I never made it that low, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Fast-forward through the next 40 to 50 years and my weight has bounced up and down, in tandem to stress and bad living. My husband and I both have had to resort to calorie counting to get our respective weight under control, even…

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