Exit Stage Left

There's a great line in the play The Clean House where Lane, the power-doctor, says to her Brazilian maid, Mathilde, "How old are you?"

Mathilde responds "young enough to know I still have good skin, but old enough to wonder if I still have good skin."

"You're 27." Lane says.

I appreciated that line back in March when I saw the play but have come to appreciate it much, much more in the last few weeks.

I have always been blessed with good skin, and I do realize how lucky I am. That's not to say, of course, that I haven't given my skin the T.L.C. it deserves. In fact, I can't think of a single night that's gone by in the past 15 years where I've gone to bed without the proper skin care regimen; that's just how I roll.

In the past few weeks, however, the wrinkles around my eyes have gotten really bad. The bags beneath my eyes have puffed up and they now resemble a shar pei puppy. There are rough dry patches in the wrinkles where makeup collects and where moisturizer must be carefully applied to be effective. Add to all of that a dry climate and I feel like the skin around my eyes looks something like a wrinkled bed sheet wadded up at the end of the bed on a hot summer night. I'm beginning to understand why women spend small fortunes on skin care products and why they might be compelled to have a face lift (though, I once saw one on TLC's "The Operation" and I swore I could never put myself through that).

If this is what 27 is like, I have to wonder---what will be my fear at 28?