The View from a Drawbridge

A couple months ago I was sitting in a restaurant with a group of people, one of whom was trying to sell a skin product that I couldn’t have been less interested in, when she turned to me and said, “It could even take care of that thing on your cheek.” Everyone kind of took a beat and looked down at their plates. I wanted to crawl under the table. But more importantly, I wanted to rush to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I have a “thing” on my cheek? I had no idea.

Later, in the privacy of my hotel room, I looked, and sure enough, I DO have a thing. It’s a darker spot about the size of, oh hell, I don’t know, 3/4^ths of a dime? Ewww. How long has that been there? God, what do I do? I certainly wasn’t going to buy HER product after that humiliation, but I had seen commercials for dark spot correctors. Maybe I should try that. So I bought a tube of the stuff, to the tune of twenty dollars that I don’t really have, and I have been using it every day for months. No change. Every time I look into the mirror now, I see that spot. It’s like it’s now my focal point, and apparently it’s here to stay. It’s ironic that I’ve gone 48 years without noticing it. Actually, I have no idea how long it’s been there, but I’ve looked at a few old pictures, and apparently I’ve had it for at least 20 years. My point is, until that woman said something, it wasn’t even on my radar screen, and now it seems to loom large.

You really have to be careful what you say to people. You can never truly know the impact.

That reminded me of the time when the first person I ever loved said to me, “You’re not the kind you marry.” When I asked him to elaborate on this, he never did, and to this day I can’t figure out exactly what he meant by that, and believe me, I’ve spent a LOT of time pondering the possibilities, but sure enough, he didn’t marry me, and no one else has. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence, or if I somehow took those words too much to heart, or if he was privy to some fact that eludes me, but no one I’ve ever wanted to marry has ever asked, and the ones who have asked weren’t ones I wanted to marry, so there you have it. Maybe I should contact him and have him light a candle, do a dance…something…to remove this curse.

Or maybe I should just get over myself.

But one thing’s for certain: I’m really going to make an effort to watch what I say to people.