This prompt prompted me to write about something that happened this morning.

I got up and went to have the first of many pees of the day (if you discount the ones I got up for in the night.) As I approached the loo, I looked at the wall to my right and caught myself looking at this old lady – in the mirror. I discovered something that I thought you should know about…….the worst wrinkles on the face are caused by sleeping on one’s side! The skin, most often on the left side of my face, squishes up (its being sort of loose, nowadays) and the squishing makes the wrinkles. Luckily, my facial skin is a little bit elastic still so that some of the wrinkles aren’t quite so deep as the day goes on.

My mother knew this fact when she was still in her 40s. She slept only on her back. She still got wrinkles. I have tried to sleep on my back but that is when I make snoring noises, which wake me up.

At 82 (nearly), why do I worry about wrinkles, anyway?

The answer to that is, of course, vanity. Everyone wants to be attractive, or else, why do so many, women especially, have so much done to their faces and necks even when they’re ‘old’ and no longer need to be attractive. Even if I could afford it, there’s no way I’m going to have a face lift. Women with those extreme face lifts somehow look worse, to me, than leaving their faces in a natural state. I suppose if they feel better because of it, that’s okay.

What do I find laughable about all this? I’m not really sure but it’s probably the constant seeking for ‘youth’ in one’s old age. When I was 12, I looked 10. At 20, I had to prove my age if I wanted to drink in a pub where you need to be 18. At 40, I started being quite pleased, that everyone thought I was in my late 20s and when I was in my 50s and was shopping with my 8 year old grand-daughter, most people got the impression that I was her mother. Suddenly, when I was 62 or thereabouts, I was very surprised when the bus driver asked if I had my ‘bus pass’. (In Thanet, people over 60 are entitled to free bus travel at certain times of the day.) I was surprised because all my life I had appeared to be quite a bit younger than my age and suddenly this driver knew I was old!

You have to laugh at the female folly!