My alarm breaks through my morning sleep like a hammer. I snooze and cocoon back into my blankets until I drag my way to the treadmill – except on the mornings I don’t, which become more frequent with each week. My teenagers don’t wake up as easily as they did as children, but they have an excuse, biorhythms and science support their reluctant rising. My yawns match theirs as we trudge through the darkness, and maybe they don’t think about how the sun will rise earlier soon, but I do.
I notice the changes in my skin first: drier, paler, duller. I make sure to wash my face each night, to moisturize each day, adding Vitamin C serum and other letters I buy from the drugstore, though I know in the back of my mind I’m getting a ghost of the help I could from a dermatologist. Soon, I’m avoiding my own eyes in the mirror; the shadows underneath resemble bruises. Articles tout the power of filler, of prescription-grade products, of a skilled facialist. One article calls out what the others whisper: if you don’t want your skin to age, it helps to be rich.
I’m not rich.
The next best path, it seems, is sleep. Seven hours. Eight if you can get them. Nine if you want to luxuriate in it. My fingers tap out hours, counting backward from my alarm time, then counting forward from when we’re finally home each night, when the laundry has been shifted to the dryer, when the counters are wiped and the dishwasher started. The taps aren’t close to nine, nor eight, nor even seven.
I know I could find my way to my pillow a little earlier. Those hours in the darkness, those missing taps, could be spent sleeping. Instead, I fill them with one more mindless scroll, a game of Sudoku, a few more pages, ten minutes of the next episode of a show I’m watching with Ryan. I hope these moments, stretching into too much time, allow my brain to quiet instead of just darkening the purple moons beneath my eyes.
I drink more water, ignoring the numbers on the clock, waiting for the promise of brighter skin.
I’m still waiting.
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