Friday 3 January 2014

Confessions of a (recovering) Sun Worshiper

It has been snowing all day long.

I've spent most of the day on the couch with F, watching movies and occasionally glancing out the window and wistfully dreaming of summer. And tanning. Laying in the sun, basking in the glow and the warmth and the awesome. It won't be summer for a long time. That's why there's tanning beds though, right? You lay in the bed and feel the warmth and you just soak it all up and have 15 minutes of summertime anytime.

Except that I forced myself to give up tanning. 

And it hasn't been easy. I'm beginning to tire juuuuuust a little bit from the Oh my gosh, you're so pale comments because then I have to be all Sorry, I naturally look like a vampire and was willingly subjecting myself to premature aging and skin cancer so that I looked normal and then shit gets awkward, yo. 

But seriously. Tanning was kind of like cigarettes to me (and there's a habit I really don't need to kick again). I loved laying in the bed for my 15 minutes of warmth and seeing my tan lines form. Until I started noticing that my bronzed skin was getting a little, ahem, speckle-y to the point that my beloved freckles were becoming rather large spots and I was seeing laugh lines even when I'm not laughing. And that's about the time I realized that I was fast-fowarding my skin to being 60 before I hit 30, and ain't nobody got time for that.

So I quit. Cold turkey. I marched my bronzed self to a Shopper's Drug Mart around the corner and I bought sunscreen, and a Retin-A cream and I vowed to take better care of my skin. The same way I vowed to put out that last cigarette. The same way I make the decision to eat well and exercise. And kind of like my efforts to stay thin-ish and (almost) in shape, it was my vanity that led me both in and out of that tanning bed.I decided I needed to take it one step further though, and I put all of my self-tanner in a box and put it away because I think the root of my problem lies in that I didn't feel pretty without a tan. 

And I still kind of don't. But I will.

And I will continue to miss the summertime sun and the warmth. But in just a few months, my sunscreen and I will hit the beach again. And I'll enjoy my book in the grass, and build castles in the sand and protect my skin the way I should have in the first place.

1 comment:

  1. Good Girl sweetie! Take it from me....skin cancer sucks ass! I am about to embark into the lovely world of topical chemotherapy thanks to my teenage sun worshiping ways and it scares the shit out of me....when people comment on how pale Sophie and I am I just say "Hi my name is Melanie and I was diagnosed with stage 3 Melanoma at the age of 23, I have a lot of things to live for now and a tan isnt worth a lifetime with my daughter....we are pale and proud!"

    That tends to shut them up :p

    Be pale and proud!

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