Sunscreen-1, Midlife Crisis-0

The summer of 2019 was--and remains in sweltering southwest Tennessee--a difficult one for this skin cancer patient. I’ve been debating about chalking it up to a seven-year-itch type situation. It’s quite possible that it’s actually more akin to a midlife crisis kind of thing. I’m at year 12 post-tanning, and I think I hit rock bottom this summer. I definitely hope that’s the case anyway.

Two steps back

Putting it simply and throwing it right out there for all to see--I almost caved and went without sunscreen. To put the proverbial icing on the cake, I actually bought this former tanner’s gateway drug--self-tanner. After all the preaching I have done about staying pale and being sun-smart, I came stupidly close to throwing caution to the wind and allowing myself to just get a little color on my pale skin. It has to be a midlife crisis thing, right? Twelve years of taking extra precautions to avoid the sun, hoarding sunscreen, and planning vacations around shady activities has finally taken a toll on my nerves. Turning 45 this spring just couldn’t have played a huge role in my dilemma, now could it?

My inner tanning fiend

I felt it all coming on in the spring right around the time of my birthday. March and April were traditionally the months when my tanning revved into high gear. I can remember thinking as I walked to the mailbox one Saturday afternoon that the sun really felt nice on my arms and face. Follow that up with a sudden moment of panic because I had yet to put on my daily sunscreen. Then, out of nowhere, this tiny but powerful thought began to slowly shove the panic over to the side and whisper, “...but what if you just didn’t wear it? Won’t you be fine? A little tan won’t hurt anything.”

The shame in feeling weak

I am smarter than this...really, I am. Darn midlife crisis. Darn basal cell carcinomas and blasted melanoma. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider storing the sunscreen at least for the spring months and letting what happened happen. I wouldn’t be intentional with the sun exposure, but I wouldn’t exactly prevent it either. I know! I’m shaking my head as I type this. These are not my proudest moments, nor are they my most rational.

Routine wins out

Over the next couple of days, I debated with that little voice, and I wore my sunscreen anyway. It really is just too easy to do when you’ve made it a part of your daily routine. There’s no good reason to go without it, after all. I did, however, find myself wandering into the self-tanner section of Ulta one afternoon following, of all things, an appointment with my dermatologist. Thirty minutes later, I’m sitting in the car looking at a tube of self-tanner--something I hadn’t purchased in over a decade. I stared at the bright orange tube not quite knowing what to make of it. I remembered self-tanner as something that never yielded the results I wanted and as something more than a little difficult to apply evenly. (I was quickly getting over my desire for bronze skin.)

I hung in there, y’all

Fast forward past a weeklong vacation to Disneyworld and a summer of yard work. My skin is still pale, and when I get the least bit chilly in the grocery store, it turns a sickly shade of purple with the oddest white spots. You know what else? That orange tube of self-tanner is still sitting in my bathroom in a basket next to my sunscreen. I never used a drop. I admit I smelled it a time or two just for kicks. It was a difficult summer--the summer of 2019, and it almost got the best of me. For now, I feel safe in saying I won this round with the dreaded midlife crisis. I know for a fact, though, I logged one more victory for sun-safety.