rip van wrinkle.

am i the only 20 something year old that loves her wrinkles?



i was talking with my mom the other day...and i realized something. i absolutely love my wrinkles. i love my laugh lines. i love my crows feet near my eyes. i love the way my eyes sink a little further into my face. i love the sun spots on my face, and the way every single freckle tells a story.

i guess i can see where women come from when they talk about how they want to get rid of their wrinkles. to try and...become...younger. to try and erase the age spots that other people use to determine how old they are. i guess i can see it since trees do it too, with the bark hiding their rings within the trunk.

i guess i can see why women want to erase the places that showed where they were mad, or sad, or cried a lot. or when they were in the sun...perhaps a distant painful memory of watching a loved one leave town.

i could see how women would want to hide their skin with make up. to get rid of the ugly acne and freckles on their face. to give the apperance of soft smooth skin that looks like they never left home. maybe never went on adventures. or to try and erase the memory of that adventure. maybe they don't want to remember that they are getting older...too old to go on another one because of responsibilities.


but me?

no.


i love my wrinkles. i love looking into my face and seeing the lines where i cried. the lines that have made me who i have become. the sun spots that hit my face from standing too long in the sun when i was yelling at a boy outside of his apartment, begging him to love me...to be with me. the freckles i got when i moved to Wilmington to start a whole new life for myself. to experience the sun and not just the mountains. to take a chance on a new life.

i love my deep set eyes. the eyes that continue to fall back into my face, where it looks like bags under my eyes. those bags are full of wisdom. full of memories. full of pictures that will never be erased from my mind.

i love my zits and pimples. it reminds me of high school when i was made fun of for having a gross face. it shows me how far i have come. it shows me that it doesn't matter what your face looks like, only what your heart looks like. if you can improve your heart, your face doesn't matter all that much. people will like you for your face. people will love you for your heart.


make-up: a way of covering up the past. a way to make-up what you have been through.

nah. i'm good.

clogged arteries.

recently, i took one of those "buzzfeed" quizzes to determine if i was "left-brained or right-brained." this question has always puzzled me.

my mind sees crazy pictures. it's always been that way. day dreaming of flowers, mountain ranges, and always and forever the sunset. i hear beautiful harmonies in my mind, think of wonderful lyrics for songs and have a heart for creating beauty. i always contain the desire to paint, sing, dance, and experience beauty. however, my entire life, i've struggled with the ability to let my mind out. (even that last sentence was hard to write. what i wanted to say in a  creative way was...'i've struggled with the ability to get everything that is always in my head out into the world for people to see.' see what i mean? it's difficult to explain myself or even to get what i want to say out onto paper, or even into the world away from my mind.) living this way has been exhausting. so i assumed my creativity was more directed toward math, logic, and...you know, left-brained stuff.

want to know something absolutely crazy? in high school, i loved math more than you could even imagine. i would go home and look at my math book and teach myself things you wouldn't even begin to believe. math, numbers, probability, algebra, angles make SENSE to me. weird huh? how a girl who loves to daydream and make up things, LOVES numbers. i would actually sit in math class as the teacher was talking and explaining the "new topic" that we "didn't know about yet" and i was doing that night's homework on my desk. here is a typical conversation i would have with my teacher after class:

teacher: "annie, i'm going to need you to pay attention in class instead of doodling."
me: "no, you don't understand, i was doing the homework for tonight."
teacher: "how do you know how to do it? that is what i was explaining in class today. you would have known that if you were paying attention. now i know you are involved in theatre and musicals and art and all of the extra curricular activities, and those are fine, but i need you to understand and pay attention to math. you're going to need these things too."
me: "no. i was really doing the homework. i finished. here."
(at this point, she was really mad at me)
teacher: "wait. how did you....wait. what?"
me: "can you assign me more problems from the textbook? or give me a worksheet on figuring out angles? those are my favorite."

teachers didn't understand me. hell, i didn't understand me. i still don't in many aspects. but i realized something the other night. it's not that i am totally right-brained or totally left-brained. i've just been more comfortable and have the ability/practice to communicate my left-side characteristics.

so what is the difference between revealing my right-side and left-side?

these questions have most often been swirling in my head: "am i scared of what might come out?" "am i afraid of what people might say/think/judge my art?" "will i be able to express my heart through my hand?" "how do i practice getting it out?"

it almost feels as if there is a mental block. almost the way a clog feels like in your arteries. am i going to have a heart attack if i don't break through and get a flow going?

but at the same time, i almost have a superman complex. when i see a painting, or artwork, or lyrics/poems, i think, "what? i could totally do that." and i sit down to write what is in my head, and you know what comes out? nothing.

i noticed that extremely creative and right-brained people doodle. i have never been able to doodle. do i want to doodle? absolutely. am i able to draw? absolutely not. have i tried? of course.

i guess i try to figure out what is going on with my heart as i talk and write. this blog was not written with the intention of writing a question and arriving at an answer. it's more of, "hey, this is what i'm thinking and feeling. has anyone else experienced this and can give me tips?"

i press on.