The office I worked in for over 25 years included men and women of various ages – some employees close to the ages of my children, many in their 40’s and 50’s, and one or two employees in their early 60’s. A good percentage of the people had been employed at City Hall for several years, so we all had a history together. Despite the range of ages, we had fun together socializing within the office with monthly birthday parties, occasional potlucks, a baby shower now and then, etc., and even got together sometimes out of the office too – we all got along quite well.
One day as I walked into the break room, I overheard a conversation between two of my colleagues about their ages and how they were trying to fight the onset of wrinkles, and then the conversation drifted towards who looked old in the office and who didn’t, what they guessed their various co-workers’ ages to be, etc. About then, a couple of customers came into the office with a question, and when they left, the same two co-workers began trying to estimate the age of each of those customers. They mentioned the amount of gray hair, wrinkles around the eyes, frown lines, etc.
Suddenly, Christopher, one of our youngest coworkers, came walking into the break room and heard this last part of the conversation. He looked at them both and said, “If you really want to guess someone’s age more accurately, don’t make a judgment by looking at their faces. What I do is look at their necks – that’s where the real age lines are!”
That was a new and somewhat startling thought to me, so guess what I did when I went home that night – yep, when I changed clothes and looked closely at my neck in the mirror, I was stunned! “Oh my God!” I said to myself – and I really don’t swear much at all, but I was astounded at my neck wrinkles! You see, I’d never noticed before because when I change out of my day clothes into my jammies, I’ve typically already taken my contacts out so I don’t see all that well. Without my contacts, my skin looked smooth and much more youthful than when I looked closely while wearing my contacts. Now I’m guessing that sometime soon after you read this, you’ll find a reason to wander over to a mirror, take a gander at your image and look very closely at your neck like I did.
It’s also possible you’ve noticed that I wear turtlenecks a lot. If I’m honest, there are probably two reasons why I like to wear turtlenecks – one reason is because I tend to get cold in the fall and winter months, and well, you might be able to guess the other reason. When I was working, I often wore turtlenecks to work, and now in retirement, I still do. So when you see me out and about this fall and winter, you’ll know I have more than one reason for wearing so many turtlenecks! Can you relate?
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