Then and Now: A Face

When I was thirty I looked at my face in the mirror, the baby smooth skin, the longing liquid eyes, the thin cheeks, and thought, “This is a face that has been untouched by life.” I didn’t know enough to want to keep it that way.

Now I look at the skin tags, the baggy eyes, the yellowed sclera, the drooping eyelid, the wrinkled sockets, the hanging jowls, the thickened neck, the puffy cheeks, the parchment forehead, the bumps, the pores, the blotches, and think, “Touched--and not harmed.”