Tan Lines

I just need to publicly announce that my skin actually has some color. I HAVE A TAN! Not much of one, but THERE IS A LINE! Hallelujah! It took three hours of floating around in the water to achieve it, but who cares. And can I just say (brace yourself) that I even got a little color on my legs??? (only the front, and not very much - at all - but at least I won't blind everyone at church {maybe}).

This is coming from the girl who thought she had made peace with her glowing whiteness. I do not want to hear any one with any amount of natural skin pigmentation try to commiserate with me here. You do not know what it's like in my world of year-round-whiteness. I do not burn, I do not tan. Apparently, I have the world's first sun-resistant skin. Let me illustrate.

I got tan once. I was working (like a SLAVE) for my brother one summer (the summer I met my husband actually - could it have been the tan??) and he had a pool. It was so ridiculously hot (over 95 EVERY day) that I would start working at 5:00 am. My entire day was spent in the sun as I hauled rocks with the wheel barrow, moved construction debris, hauled more rocks, and (attempted) to level his back yard with a shovel.

At 11:30 every day I took a two hour pool break to cool off. No sunscreen touched my body - my weapon of choice was baby oil. Slathered all over my glorious whiteness, the baby oil and I would float around my brother's pool following a strategic turning plan aimed at achieving the world's greatest tan. When finished, I would spend the rest of the day outside finishing my torture - oops, I mean work. (BTW, he paid VERY well).

After three months of this, those who knew me (and my natural coloring) well would say things like "Wow, it looks like you got a little color this year."

The rest of the population was probably wondering why I was so white.

I should have looked like a sun-goddess.

Really, I am constantly hearing how my skin "glows". Just so you know people, this is NOT a compliment if it's proceeded by phrases like "you're skin's so white it..." Especially coming from someone with a great tan, or naturally dark skin. And what about when they want to "compare" so they can show you just how white you really are (as if you didn't know). It's the equivalent of a skinny person going up to a fat person and saying "wow, you are sooo fat! Let's compare, see how much thinner I am than you? Let's put our butts together so we can measure the difference! Standing next to you makes me look like a supermodel!"

I digress. Back to the happy news, when I put a black t-shirt on this morning, my arms, chest, and neck didn't offer nearly the usual contrast! And of course they looked thinner, because everyone knows that tan takes inches off and adds tone to flabbiness. I am so thrilled I'm thinking of trying harder to get color next year. Let's see, it should only take about 300 hours of dedication to the sun to achieve that elusive "all-over-color"... Wish me luck.