On Beauty: Dads need face cream too.

The beauty market. A thing of, well, beauty. Somehow we have entire stores dedicated to looking, smelling, and feeling better. Walk in with despair, a zit, and early wrinkles; walk out with hope, plump cheeks, radiant skin, and broke. 
The truth is when you look good, you feel good. And these stores know that. They have the market cornered making young girls clamor for the smoky cat-eye lash extended blast off effect and the stay at home mommies dying for dark circle tired eye wrinkle eradicators. They know people want to feel good. And they deliver. 
So for me, these items were indulgent and unnecessary. Why get sucked into dropping half my paycheck on something I could do with a little soap, H2O and sandpaper (if necessary). 
Imagine my surprise a while back as I was admiring my gorgeous complexion in the mirror after scraping away what little facial hair I managed to grow and I saw something. A wrinkle. 
"What the H-E-Double Hockey Stick is that?!" 
A second look confirmed it wasn't just last nights brewskis creeping up on me and playing a trick (they do that from time to time). 

I HAD A WRINKLE. 
How could this have happened to me? I'm young, vibrant, I sing, I laugh, I dance and I shower on a regular basis. I use soap. I use water. I brush my teeth twice a day. I exercise erratically. 

HOW COULD I HAVE A DAMN WRINKLE?! 

It's as if someone took that old school sand timer and turned it over and pointed me out - creepy-like and said something like "The clock is running." Or "Your time is running out." Or "Tick Tock." Creepy. 
Concurrently Pink Floyd's "Time"  would be likely playing in the back ground "Ticking away, the moments that make up the dull day... song song song.... One day closer to DEATH."
 
I felt punished.  And old. I wrestled with this old feeling briefly when I turned 30 and reckoned the best had already happened. But this was different. Visual proof of the aging process eating away at my body. 
So I did what I had to do. I raided my wife's products in search of hope. 

I found it. After examining multiple products which had nothing to do with correcting my plight (leave in conditioner is amazing; and body butter?!?! Come on now!) I found MY face cream.  (Yes, I claimed them). 
There were two: day and night. They were cleverly packaged with a deep, dark purple-blue and a bright red for clarity in which was for which. 
Deep breath in and I dabbed my finger in, placed gently on my cheeks and rubbed in circular sweeping motions, just like they said. 

MAGIC. 

The room got brighter. The doves cooed louder. Hall and Oates came on in the background. I felt better about myself. My skin lightly tingled. The thoughts of my nearly imminent death vanished. There was HOPE in this bottle of gooey white stuff!

I was sold. Turns out, Dudes probably need some face cream too. And, and I have also found out, regularly using heavy duty lotion makes me feel good too. And, I don't second guess my manhood as much as I thought I would when using a 'Product". In fact, the prettier I feel, the more confident I am in me. Weird. No wonder this gets addicting for folks. 

I still wrestle knowing that I will get some major wrinkles before said and done. But I'm feeling better about it. And probably, as life leads us down some crazy paths, I have earned those wrinkles. And I'm okay with that.