Monday, April 19, 2010

Sunlight Paranoia

A couple of days ago I got my first sunburn of the year, not because I spent a huge amount of time in the sun, but because my skin has an aversion to the sunlight. Every time I go into the sun I hiss and cover my face and run for the darkness. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but what can you do? Sunscreen you say? That would be too obvious.

I clearly remember the worst sunburn of my life, and I never want to experience that again. I was 15, and thus naive enough to think it would be a good experience to go on a church pioneer trek. Oh boy was I wrong. Three days of being exclusively outside gave me a sunburn that PEELED UNTIL IT BLED. There was sunscreen available, which is more than the actual pioneers had, but I didn't use any because it was so windy the whole time that all of the dust would have stuck to my face and made me look like a sand monster. Another defense against the sun was my beautiful bonnet, because we had to not only act like pioneers, but dress like pioneers. No good. The wind also constantly blew my bonnet off so after a while I gave up putting it back on and just let it flap around my neck. Factor in walking non-stop for three days while pulling a handcart, sleeping on the ground with NO PILLOW, and the mysterious fat lip that I woke up with on the third day, and you can see why I enjoyed myself so much. I have to hand it to the pioneers....they were crazy.

I promised myself I would use sunscreen religiously this year and not get burned a single time. Well we all see how that turned out. Now I have to add skin cancer to my long list of paranoias. Believe me, that list DOESN'T NEED TO BE ANY LONGER. The only way I function in society is by forgetting all my paranoias for a period of time. Then something will happen to remind me of them and I feel like yelling, "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" At least I will die with a tan.

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