Smile Lines

Sometimes I don't realize how much I've physically aged until I look at pictures from my not-so-distant past. I've always looked young for my age, and I guess that's good thing... when I'm 40. For now, I prefer that my face match the number of years I've been alive. It's hard to get much respect when the first thing people ask me is what college I'm currently attending. At the same time, though, I guess if I make others work for my respect, it would only be fair for them to demand the same of me.

My mom always told me that I should stop laughing the way I do because I'll get wrinkles too early in life. I mean, I laugh a lot, which means that premature wrinkling is pretty much inevitable. I definitely don't want to forcefully consider how I look every time I laugh, so the only question that remains is not whether I'll have wrinkles, but what kind of wrinkles I want to have.

So I've decided that I want clean, pleasant smile wrinkles. Crisp ones with well-defined lines. I love it when I see older Chinese men with wrinkle lines that fan out from the corners of their eyes. The kind that accentuate their (often toothless) smiles and make you want to smile with them every time they shine one your way. If I'm gonna look old, I may as well let other people enjoy it with me.

Here is the picture that kicked this thought off. It was taken about 2.5 years ago while I was living in Shanghai and Guan Di was still a chill, not-so-overly-pretentious club. Catherine and Janet were two of my close friends.

Good memories.