Epidermally speaking

So given that I'm staring down the barrel of a huge life change (gosh, that's some super-positive imagery there...I'm excited about it, really! I swear!), it has apparently sparked some impulses to improve myself in other areas. Ergo, I have rediscovered my somewhat dormant urge to do something really radical: moisturize.

I feel like I'm confessing something pretty dark and potentially humiliating here, but...my skin has not felt the sweet, humid kiss of moisturizer in a while now. I've sort of been stuck been in a fall-into-bed-any-which-way mode--too many grueling nights of retail adventures or colorful evenings with the kids, I guess, to think about adding another step between me and that mattress.

But suddenly last night, out of nowhere, I heard this little tiny voice calling out, "I'm thirsty!" I believe it was my epidermis. The voice was pretty faint, but then, I think it'd been calling for a while now, and had just about given up and accepted its fate. So I got up and started hunting around for moisturizer. I had to go digging in the scary dark places under my sink to find it, but I don't think it had gone rancid or anything--can you get botulism from bad moisturizer? Great, now I'm gonna worry about that, too...

It sounds silly, but I actually do think this is a small sign of...something. Here I am about to radically alter my physiology, change my relationship with food forever, and now that the panic is starting to subside, I think I'm experiencing some urges to take care of myself in other ways. Even something as small as moisturizing (which as I keep reading, you can't really overstate the importance of...I think Cosmo said so). So I think it's a pretty good sign, that maybe I can shift my focus--at least sometimes--from everyone else's needs, and take a closer look at some of my own. Or it's a midlife crisis. Good for the pores, either way.

Next step: to rediscover the joys of pedicures, convince my husband it's cheaper than therapy, and save money on the all bedsheets my sandpaper feet would otherwise shred to bits.