It’s not easy being so damned good-looking. It’s a curse, really. My cross to bear. Just looking at this photo above makes me think that maybe, just maybe, there is a God after all. How else could such perfection come to be?

OK, so someone applied a face-stretching iPhone app to my face. Enhanced my jowls. Scrunched my head, Dick Tracy bad guy-like. But that squirrely, half-crossed left eye? That’s all me, baby. You can’t teach that. Or you got it, or you don’t.

Digitally-retouched or no, this photo is probably where my face is heading. Like one of those “this is your city in 50 years due to Global Warming” drawings. Only it’s my face, not the encroaching shoreline.

It’s scary, no? Not the photo; the photo is funny. Makes me giggle every time I stumble onto it, flipping through the photo albums on my phone. The getting old–or at least getting older–part, that’s what occasionally gives me a start.

I’m not complaining about my mental or emotional state, or even my physical condition. I think I’m wiser now, more thoughtful now, probably able to out-Burpee my younger self.

I do have some complaints about the state of the face that looks back at me in the mirror. Who the hell is that, and why is that dude in my bathroom?!? What happened to the fresh-faced high school kid in the maroon cap and gown? Never mind that said kid had a single eyebrow at the time of the cap and gown photo. I’d gladly trade one of my eyebrows to experience that youthful glow again. Wouldn’t I?

When I smile now, the lines that made it linger a moment or two on my face after I’ve quit smiling. The big knuckles of my big toes are bigger than they are supposed to be, and a bit cranky. Apparently their “pre-arthritic” condition a side-effect of the maybe one bazillion steps pounded into them along many miles of pavement, trails, and sand. I struggle a bit to capture my mate’s words over the din of a bustling restaurant, pragmatically resorting to cupping a hand behind my ear, the better to hear. I’m fairly certain that all these years of swimming in the frigid bay have not been kind to the inner workings of my inner ear. The business end of my teeth has been worn down a bit, polished smooth over time, bottom and top teeth grinding together while working through one or another of life’s many consternations.

My face is a map of where I’ve been. A collection of experiences that have made me who I am. And I am good with who I am. I’ll just have to get used to the ever-changing dude in the mirror.

Thanks for reading. >