Bare Face Truths

For my boys,

Take a long, hard look at my face. What do you see? Walk around my face and read the journey of my life.

These deep furrows between my eyes? These are where the mean words live. The ones I’ve said in anger and the hurtful ones said to me. Like a burrowing mammal, these words have been taken down for hibernation, to be winter fuel for bad thoughts and negative energies. They are permanently in resident, like squatters refusing to leave.

The thin lines above my lips? I don’t smoke so nicotine hasn’t birthed these indents. These are from pursing my lips so hard, trying desperately not to say what I want to when I’m hurt or confused. The lost words linger around my top lip, holding it hostage to my inability to articulate my deepest thoughts.

The scar running down my nose and across my left eye? The car crash every parent dreads for their child. A greater force chose life for me that fateful night. These scars bear witness to my guardian angel.

The deep, dark bags under my eyes? These are my battle scars - some heroic, some reckless, some the stuff of myth and legend. A combination of sleepless nights; from the baby years of night feeds and wakefulness; the business owner anxiety of being responsible for other people’s mortgages; ever-changing family dynamics. But these bags also represent the good times; the parties and the hangovers; the whispered stories of careless abandonment; of morals gone AWOL; the nights that you live for and the ones you remember when your antagonistic teen calls you boring! Oh my darling, if only you truly knew. These bags, they know.

The ones I’m most proud of are those small ones around my eyes - these are the ones that show how much I laugh every day. With my husband, with you both, with my friends. Every line is the joy of living, of simply being alive and living each day to its fullest. (Well, apart from the days that you just bumble through and truly aren’t an Instagram-able moment - those days just are). These little lines are treasured, respected and loved. They speak of good times, good thoughts and good deeds.

Finally look deep into my blue eyes, Can you see their sparkle? Can you see the mischief that is ever-waiting to jump out? The eyes that see every day as an adventure, another page in another chapter - age defiant, unapologetic. These eyes never stop searching, never stop exploring, never stop seeking the next big shiny thing. I rue the day the sparkle dies.

Boys, your beautiful faces are unlined and wrinkle free, smooth and unknowing. They are ready for your journey to be created, your adventures to be revealed.

Go write the story of your face.