despite mourning the loss of my team being uncermoniously removed from the amazing race monday evening, i met a friend for coffee yesterday. she works in sales and marketing for a beauty company and is quite high up in the austral-asia region.
we are friendish, and she has pursued the relationship, which intrigues me because when we are together she doesn’t laugh or smile a lot at anything i say. she’s a very attractive girl, vietnamese, with pale skin and these days, long hair with a fringe.
i confessed about the addition of face cream to my cabinet and she looked up at me and deadpan and said, "how do you think i feel? since i was a little girl, my mother told me not to smile too much or i would get lines. so i don’t smile."
can you imagine not smiling for fear of getting laugh lines? trading in beauty for joy? yes, you can let your eyes laugh, but this girl’s eyes are often sad. what else did her mum tell her i wonder? what else did she sacrifice for beauty?
i was collecting sebastian from school later on in the day and as he galloped down the stairs he was waving a white envelope in the air. i realised they were his school pictures! how wildly exciting! we followed what many other mums were doing: we quickly sat down and examined them, picture after picture of smiling sebastian. idential images. we looked at the class photo.
it was warm outside, the sun shining down. as sebastian’s little finger tapped each classmate and he said, "he’s a friend, he’s a friend, she’s a friend and she’s at my table, she’s a friend…" i wondered,
in a world like this, with a life like mine, how can we not get lines? with the sun on my shoulders, the child that causes my heart to contract with anxiety smiling and relaxed in my arms as he determines that today, everyone in his class is his friend, when i am surrounded by people who care for me, how can i not grin and be glad for my world?
i will continue to slap on the face cream, a reactive non-cure to my lines – and God and my perspective willing, i will not stop smiling.
