Tan Lines

"What's that line on your face?" Annie asked.

I got up and looked in the mirror, discovering a white line running horizontally across my left temple, at eye level, just where my glasses sit. Apparently I had aquired a tan line from my specs after driving an hour and a half in the sun each day for eight months.

My left arm is also much darker than the right one, for the same reason. I like to drive with the window down, arm hanging out. My dad called that "260 air conditioning", because you drove 60 miles an hour with 2 windows rolled down, hardy har har.

I'd never really noticed either condition before Annie pointed it out. It just sort of happened over time, a slow accumulation after months of the same routine. A lot of things in life are like that, I think. We just sort of stumble along, living our lives, doing what it takes to get from point A to point B, and little by little changes add up until one day, we sit up and notice that something's different. Tan lines run here and there, wrinkles pop up at the corners of our eyes from the way we laugh, the soles of our shoes get unevenly worn due to small quirks in the way we walk ... We don't see these things happening, the time scale is too slow to fit the rhythm of our lives, but nonetheless we wake up one day and there they are, patiently waiting for us to notice.