Wrinkled and crumpled

I began to wear glasses when I turned 40 and really, quite suddenly, couldn’t see well anymore. It’s been downhill since. Every year, the grade moved higher as vision became more blurred. From reading glasses I graduated to bi-focals and finally to today’s progressive lenses on permanent eyeglasses. I have not been vain about my eyes, don’t mind wearing glasses permanently, but I mind not seeing my face too well.

My son sent text one day asking if I wanted a photograph taken with him and his family. He set an appointment with Patrick Uy. I know him, I answered. He was one of our photographers at Coca-Cola. In fact, the photograph on one of my credit cards was taken by him. It was the Patrick I remembered though he looked just a tiny bit older. He did not instantly recognize me. I had to reintroduce myself, recall Coca-Cola and the fiesta at Peñafrancia, which I knew he photographed with Pempe Vitalis, who has since passed away. “Yes, of course,” he said suddenly remembering. “I did not know you were Gino’s mother.”

But when I saw the photographs he took, I knew it wasn’t just that he did not know I was Gino’s mother. It was that I had aged much since he last saw me. Even I had not realized that I had aged that much, but his photograph showed me precisely how much I had aged. Let’s start at the top. My forehead is more lined now and the lines continue down to my nose. They surround my eyes unevenly because my eyes, originally uneven, are more uneven now. In 2002, I needed an operation on my neck. I had a stroke in 2003, in my right brain. Both of these medical reasons affected the left side of my face, which has sagged by just a bit (according to some of my friends), but actually, in some photographs you could say quite a lot.

I like to think that my left side is my dead side. My right side, however, is alive so it is somewhat smoother than my left, somewhat less wrinkled, but I once had a root canal there many years ago. One day, when my mother was still alive, the tooth fell. I did not have the money to replace it then and so there’s a gap. Now, I don’t care anymore.

Well, that’s what I get, I know. When I see my old friends, my family, people I knew before and have not seen for a while, I notice their aging. Why did I not ever notice mine? Maybe because the photographers are kind and always retouched my photos. The first time I was horrified was when I picked up my new e-passport last June. I looked older than my grandmother. But, I thought, it must be the camera. Who has a beautiful passport picture, anyway? I dismissed that one. But these I cannot dismiss. I just have to face the fact that I have grown old. My face is lined, wrinkled. I look like a faded copy of an old photograph crumpled and thrown, retrieved after a few days, then straightened out with my hands. That’s how old I look.

The three-day weekend I spent sulking as I reconstructed mobiles for a window in my flat. How did I get so old? Time passed. Life. Once I had my day and now that is over. Once I was a pretty 16 and now I am a wrinkled and crumpled 66. I better just get used to it. What else can I do? I will not have my face lifted. No, I will not have Botox injections. I will just grow old, become more wrinkled and toothless until it is finally time to go. So I am ceremoniously changing the picture in this column. Here is how I look now. Let us all get used to it.

Tomorrow, I will be selling at a bazaar in White Space, Pasong Tamo Extension. My selling space will be called Romance Atelier and we will be selling romantic pieces of jewelry for you to give to your mother, your sister, your girlfriend this Christmas. White Space has been there for quite a while. You must try to come for lunch where for P200 (I think), you can have a good delicious meal — Italian, Japanese or Thai — by Gaita Fores. Then you can shop and buy a lot of interesting things. I will be selling jewelry — semi-precious stone necklaces cleverly put together mostly by me. I hope to see you there. I hope you recognize me.

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