SCARS WRINKLES AGE SPOTS

As an aged war veteran proudly displays his medals on the wall, I respectfully submit that I wear my grey hairs and my numerous laugh (or perhaps scowl) lines in the same manner.

But I do reluctantly admit that I do not honor my rapidly thinning papery backs of my hand as much. I do not admire the hollows that twenty-nine years of.... hmm... inflated breast tissue dragging down my bra straps have created. I do not hold in high esteem the fifty lbs. that have held tightly on to my frame over the past... wow, twenty years (didn't realize it was THAT long). I grudgingly acknowledge that numerous fractures and breaks have unwillingly embraced the arthritic diagnosis that seems to accompany age.

However, I have not and hopefully WILL not embrace Botox, plastic surgery, age-spot whitening paste, garlic vitamins, teeth-capping (although if I had the money, I actually might do that one), hair-coloring (unless just the perfect violent shade of pink becomes available) an/or breast-job - no, I take that last one back - I still would LOVE to have a breast-reduction job that is not actually a mastectomy. I'd love to have a boyish figure again; wait, that sounds like I'm looking into a sex-change operation.

I think I better shut up before I get myself any deeper into this hold I am digging.