What is on my face?????

Congratulations on finishing up your law school finals and taking a well-deserved break!  Now back to your regularly scheduled RWF programming.

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Not to brag, but I have always had great skin.  Ask some of my closest friends.  At fifteen, when everyone’s skin resembled a particularly greasy pizza, mine was perfect almost all the time.  I didn’t even start wearing makeup until halfway through college, and that was because I thought it might be fun, not because I needed it.

So imagine my shock when I looked in the mirror a week ago and realized I had wrinkles.  I didn’t have them when law school started, but there they are.  Fine lines around my mouth and the corners of my eyes.  A faint crease across my forehead from wrinkling my brow when I’m skeptical, frustrated, pensive, or pretty much any other emotion.  On top of that, I’m starting to inherit my grandmother’s dark circles under the eyes.  Law school has aged me ten years in two years.  My skin has even lost that glow that I thought always made me look awake and enthusiastic.  Now I just look kind of gray and flaky.  I had to fake the glow this morning with the cream blush that I bought 3 years ago for the hell of it.

I know what you’re thinking:  You’re 24 years old.  It’s part of being a grown up.  But I’m only 24 years old.  And if law school is aging me 5 years for every one year of school, by next year I’ll be 37.  Thirty.  Seven. 

Boy insists that he doesn’t see any wrinkles, but I KNOW they’re there.  Waiting to pop up at the least convenient moment.  I also know that I just need to get over it and accept the fact that two years of squinting to read teeny, tiny legal print has permanently affected my face.  And I need to embrace the fact that a few fine lines are worth the knowledge I’ve gained and the experiences I’ve had.  Don’t sweat the small stuff and all that.  Wrinkles are the sign of a life well-lived.  Accept the reality of the circle of life.

And barring acceptance, there’s always plastic surgery once I get the loans paid off.