Skip to main content

moulting season

The good news: I lost about 2 pounds today.

The bad news: It was 100 percent skin!

I held out for as long as I could, slathering my body with gooey, oil-laden body-washes, applying handful after handful of thick creams, shunning the loofah, the pumice or any device or method that threatened to breach the ever so thin line between 'bronze, sun-showered goddess' and 'peeling reptilian hag'.

It's been 11 days since I returned from Trinidad, and, as is my custom after this annual pilgrimage, I have been living in denial of the natural process of skin renewal. Hoping to hold on to my deep almond glow for as long as possible, I abandoned my regular exfoliation regimen while my scrubby bath gloves lay neglected on the edge of the tub. But tonight in the shower, I bit the bullet, and scrubbed every reachable inch of my skin with reckless abandon. IT FELT GOOD!

Not wanting to immediately witness the resulting carnage, I remained cloistered in the the steamy bathroom for half an hour afterwards, coaxing drop after drop of body oil into my stripped epidermis, until I was satisfied that I had staved off the inevitable, itchy aftermath.

So here I sit, heavily oiled, swathed in toasty garments, and contemplating how I will react to the spectre of my naked, peeling self in tomorrow's cold morning light.

Please excuse me while I search for a suitable shroud for my wall mirror...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Phantom Debt

A couple of months ago, with the help and support of someone very dear to me, I became, for the first time in about 10 years, entirely debt-free. Of course, there should be high-fives and abundant celebratory toasts at this momentous occasion. But instead of being at peace, and revelling in my new found financial freedom, I seem to have become downright terrified of spending money. I can only compare this to the phenomenon that many amputees claim to have experienced, a sensation that the missing limb is actually still there! I still feel the weight of the appendage that I carried for over a decade. In fact, I've found myself checking my credit-card balance several times a week, each time believing that my burden would suddenly re-appear, and each time finding the balance at zero, and each time being strangely disappointed that there was no balance due. And I've taken to wringing my hands in anxiety over the 'extra' money in my bank account at the end of the month. Was...

They say ignorance is bliss.

And it WAS, for a while, but sooner or later, reality was bound smack me in the head (or a more southerly body part, in this case). The results of my follow-up exam are abnormal. So, in three weeks, I must submit to a colposcopy. For those who want extensive, clinical details about this procedure, click here . For those who do not, let's just say the doctor's going to poke around in my hoo-hah for a few minutes to see what the hell is going on down there. It's NOT cancer, they told me, but they need to see if it's anything of concern. So I'm just gonna chill, and put this out of my mind until the time comes. Yeah, right!

Test anxiety

Four months ago, a routine doctor's visit, a routine test, followed by the routine 'we'll send you the results in two weeks'. And the two weeks go by, and nothing. Did I miss the e-mail, did my answering machine go wonky? But hey, no news is good news, right? Week three, there's the e-mail 'Results abnormal. Please schedule a follow-up appointment in three months.' Abnormal? What does that mean? Is it minor? Is it serious? So I wonder, then I worry, then I scour the Internet. As they say - six of one, half a dozen of the other. For every article I read that scares me, there is another that eases my mind. But still, I worry, because I'm really good at it. And I ask a close friend. "Abnormal?" she says "No reason to panic. I've had those before!" And she goes on to say that they have to do X and they have to do Y, and then you're fine. No reason to worry. So I worry a little less each day. Things become all blurry in my head, an...