Long Hard Look
The Map on My Face
Recently, I took a long, hard look at myself in the mirror. I do not expect to do that again anytime soon.
Normally, I give my reflection only a passing glance and move on. When I shave, I rely more on touch than sight—running my fingers over my chin and neck to make sure I have done a decent job. I have never been especially vain. I spend little time checking whether my clothes match or whether my hair is in place. A quick look is usually enough.
My wife, on the other hand, is wonderfully precise about her appearance. Her blouse, slacks, shoes, and especially her jewelry must all work together. I sometimes call her my “Hollywood Girl,” particularly when she puts on her colorful sunglasses before we head out into the sunshine.
But one morning, something in the mirror caught my attention: a slight bump on my nose. It turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary blackhead. After a couple of determined squeezes, it was gone. Yet, while attending to that insignificant problem, I noticed something else. Lines.
They ran across my face like small roads on a map—except there were no route numbers, no helpful signs, and plenty of little branches leading off in directions unknown. The closer I leaned toward the mirror, the deeper those lines seemed to become.
For a moment, I wondered what could have caused so many of them. Then the light came on in the back of my mind: I have been on this wonderfully blue planet for over 31,000 rotations and through 85 trips around the sun. Skin simply does not stay smooth and tight that long without a good deal of help—and I am not talking about the kind that comes from a plastic surgeon.
So why should a man with little vanity care about the lines in his face or the puffiness beneath his eyes?
Perhaps it is because those changes are so obvious. They do not match the picture of myself that still lives somewhere in the distant corners of my mind.
My stepson says the AI-created image on my new website looks nothing like me. I think it looks rather like the man I was in my fifties and sixties. I have also had several caricatures drawn over the years, and none of them resembles the person I imagine when I think of myself.
Then again, the fellow in my mind has not always kept up with reality.
Back in February 2026, I decided it was time to lose weight. I had begun to look as though someone had stuck a tire-pump needle in my backside and was steadily pumping me up. I was in real danger of floating away. After 185 days of treatment, the weight was slowly coming off. If the current pace continues, I will have lost twenty pounds by the end of the year.
That is good news for my health—but it has created an additional problem. The lines I thought were deep are becoming even deeper. I can imagine a day when I might scare small children, or worse yet, catch my reflection in the mirror and scare myself. 😊
Still, whatever happens to those lines, I am at peace with it. Shedding those extra pounds will make me healthier, and that matters far more than looking younger. I sometimes tell friends I am trying to get my “Tom Cruise look” back. Of course, I was never as handsome as Tom Cruise, but I would be happy just to lose the double chin that seems determined to interfere whenever I shave.
I am slowly accepting something the people closest to me have probably known for some time: I am well into old age. It is not an especially welcome fact, but it is an honest one.
And perhaps the lines on my face are not something to mourn. Each one has earned its place. They represent laughter and worry, losses and blessings, hard lessons, loved ones, and the countless ordinary days that became a life.
One day, I hope I will look in the mirror and see those lines not as signs of decline, but as the visible history of a life I have been privileged to live. When I can do that, I believe I will find a deeper peace, the kind that comes from knowing I carry my story openly, proudly, and without apology.
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” — Eleanor Roosevelt