Wrinkled Was Not One of The Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up

The other day my dear friend (and favorite co-worker), Kitty, and I were sitting around talking about getting older and the changes that it brings. Kitty is 55 years old and looks amazing. She has always taken extremely good care of her skin and I've never seen her without perfect hair, make-up, and wearing a new outfit with matching shoes, purse and jewelry. Just like me. Pshhhh. Yeah right.

You should also know that Kitty (her real name is Catherine but has always been called Kitty since she was a little girl) has her PhD in Education and therefore I love to call her Dr. Kitty, for obvious reasons.

Well, she was saying that she wanted to get something done to hide some of the wrinkles on her face. She was talking about a quick, in-and-out treatment that is relatively inexpensive.
She likes to joke about our age difference and often says, "I'm old enough to be your mama." So when I jokingly tell her that I think I need to get that 'wrinkle treatment' for myself, I assumed she would laugh.
Nope.
Not the case.
Without laughing or smiling, she seriously points her perfectly manicured finger toward my face and says, "Yea, they'd probably do the treatment right there....and..... there on you."
She was pointing to my laugh lines/smile lines on the sides of my mouth.
"Kitty you better hush!"
"What? They could get rid of those ya know."
And then we just started laughing at how she straight up, without even trying to make a girl feel better, pointed out my wrinkles.

But you know, I'm proud of my smile lines. If there's one type of wrinkle that I don't mind having, it's them. It shows that I've smiled and laughed a lot in my lifetime, and they remind me of all of the people and experiences that have helped me earn 'em.

My sister, Big Al, used to make fun of me in high school. She said that she'd look out of her classroom window and see me walking down the sidewalk with a big smile on my face, even when I was walking by myself!
I deny the part about smiling when by myself, but she swears it's true. In all honesty I was probably having a full-on conversation with myself, but I'll deny that if asked also.

So, I'm okay with the fact that I have permanent parenthesis on either side of my mouth. Deep inside those lines are many happy memories.

I'm actually somewhat proud of them.

I'd rather have smile lines than frown lines any day.

But don't get my started on my under the eye area.