dorian graying

Can I tell you that I've become a little bit obsessive with facial skin lately? Now it hasn't gotten to the point where I'm buying Creme de la Mer for myself and I haven't gotten botoxed, but I'm reading every darn Vogue (my go to mag to learn how the well-heeled live) article on skin care and turning back the clock when it comes to your skin. I have the Fraxel website bookmarked for Toby, under 'things I like' for gift giving inspiration. I've talked to Toby for ages about how I want Fraxel at forty (dreadfully close now) in order to rejuvenate my skin that's looking positively haggard these days. I know it's vain but I have so much skin damage (i.e. lentigos) and hyperpigmentation because I got melasma with both of my pregnancies. Getting a blistering sunburn (doubles your chances of melanoma) on my face when I was 16 in Bermuda (I put 15 SPF on, which was the highest you could get in 1985, but that wasn't enough down there) did nothing to help my facial skin. That sunburn made me resemble a weather beaten sailor and at one point, when I was wingman for my friend, her Norwegian beau's brother told me that I looked better without my tan. Yeah, no kidding!
I have learned what I've always read about, that it can take years for the damage to show. And the past year is one where my face has aged 15 years. I'm middle aged. The reality of that statement is frightening. I know the bloom's off this rose, but the one thing I always had going for me lookswise was good skin so I can't go gently into my forties with hyperpigmentation, collagen loss, wrinkles and sagging. The other day I saw a commercial for Oil of Olay dermapods for the eye area and they mentioned how it helps fight crepeing and I was thinking to myself 'what's that?' then I looked closely in the mirror that night and realized 'Damn! my upper lids look like dark tan crepe paper. I've got crepeing!' There are days when I sadly resemble the Greek night manager of the diner I used to work at and I have no all-nighter to blame for those dark circles. So if anyone knows of a miracle creme in a bottle please let me know.
Oh, and this is incredibly obvious and foolish on my part but I know I don't drink enough water. There are so many, pretty lame, reasons for this... I can't watch my kids and pee every fifteen minutes, and unless I put the water in a sippy cup it's going to be all over the floor between my cats and the kids and I don't feel right buying bottled water what with all the flak about the plastic bottles, yet my tap water tastes horrible unless it's masked in coffee or tea. So if someone can convince me, aside from celebrities in magazines, that water is the miracle I need I'll try it, otherwise I'll maintain my stay at home mom, camel ways.