The Law of Unintended Consequences

               Sunshine…it lifts the spirits and brightens the day; don’t get enough sunshine  and you just might become depressed. We all get an important vitamin from that glowing ember, sometimes supplementing with a pill to keep those all-important levels of vitamin D where they’re supposed to be.

                In my long ago childhood the sun seemed white hot, and I remember being a happy cowgirl during the long, humid days of summer.  The neighborhood kids would yell from the street, and I’d strap on my Dale Evans holster and off I’d go.  Cowboys and Indians and bad guys and good guys, racing around the neighborhood on bikes till the street lamps came on.  Then, red skinned and ravishingly hungry, we’d go in to eat before running back outside to play hide and seek in the dark.  Not a worry in the world, and it wasn't really summer until you had a sunburn…now that’s a childhood!  

               Before long we were a neighborhood of teen agers. Never mind sunscreen, in those days we slathered on baby oil to heat up the frying process and make the burn more even.   My pasty skinned girl-friends and I added iodine to the baby oil, alternating with applications of Coppertone, we'd stretch out in the sun for as long as we could stand it.   Tanning was a healthy, golden kiss; the look every teenage girl and shirtless boy strove for.  Summer stretched before us and it smelled like a warm macaroon.  We knew the sun was our friend.

                 Smiling and thinking back over those long-ago years I remember the faces, the freckles and nicknames.  What a great bunch of kids to grow up with.  They’ve all scattered to the wind, but I bet we still have a lot in common. The law of unintended consequences has likely knocked at the door of many of my old friends.  I know it has visited me several times.

               Like so many things in my life experience I’ve enjoyed too much of a good thing.  My yearly trip to the dermatologist has turned up yet another spot of skin cancer.  Where did I get this one?   Was I drawing down on a bad guy with my trusty cap gun, or could it have been while I was talking to my BFF while stretched out in the back yard on a beach towel?  Maybe it was a combination of too much time on the ball field and too many afternoons at the pool…hard telling.  It’s my fourth go-round, and if I live to a really ripe old age it likely won’t be my last.  The bad thing is you can’t personally undo ‘too much of a good thing’; you need a surgeon to try to do that.

             If you’re reading this before you keep an appointment at the tanning salon….don’t go.  If you’re leaving for a month in Florida and you don’t want to bother packing sunscreen, pick it up first thing when you arrive in the sunshine state.   Today’s damage was done many years ago, and you can’t go back.  What you can do is try to prevent more damage going forward by using sun screen as part of your daily routine.  Consider this a public service announcement from someone who has always learned things the hard way, if at all.

          I wish you lots of sunshine in your life…just not the kind that causes skin damage!

                                                                     Life is Good