But I don’t really takecareof my skin.
Fifteen years ago, at 25, I was diagnosed with a melanoma on my arm.
“I could have died,” I said to myself over and over.
I felt fragile for weeks.
I started wearing sunscreen religiously, at least at first.
But the more time passed, the less I felt in danger of a recurrence.
Summer by summer, I started thinking of my mole checks as a replacement for SPF.
Here’s my shameful admission: I still sunbathewithout sunscreen.
My friends say I’m crazy.
Maybe so, but I’m also vain, and I look better with a tan.
Two of those times, I had a tan.
(The third time was in a dark club, so it doesn’t count.)
That’s major incentive for a single woman like me to keep up her gorgeous-making magic.
Wouldn’t self-tanner do the trick, you ask?
To me, it looks more fake than bake, a pale substitute for bona fide bronze.
When I tan, I tell myself that I’m helping myself look good and feel good.
That’s healthy, isn’t it?
Perhaps, but it’s bad arithmetic.
One doctor said as much in an email: “Tanning after a melanoma is unintelligent.”
I felt duly chastisedand a tad offended.
“You’re neither crazy nor stupid,” Diller tells me.
“Delaying gratification is difficult to do.
And you grew up in a time when a tan was considered a ‘healthy glow.’
Plus, evolutionarily speaking, women are wired to invest in their appearance as a form of survival.”
Apparently, I’m not imagining the beautifying benefits of the real deal over the fake stuff.
So how do I convince myself to avoid the sun’s rays?
Like my ability to see the positive in any situation (even, ahem, dangerous ones)?
“It’s better to use a physical trait,” she says.
“Looks aren’t everything, but theydomatter, and they clearly matter to you.”
So…my eyes?
My eyes will always sparkle, even when I’m 80.
She also suggests that I curb my tanning by exaggerating the sun’s negative effects.
After talking to a top melanoma doctor, I don’t find that difficult to do.
“That’show I should think of the sun: as something peppering me with carcinogens.
Yet surprisingly, Dr. Tsao also seems to understand why I persist in bronzing.
“It’s hard to ride the fear factor indefinitely,” he acknowledges.
“Eventually, the anxiety abates and you need reinforcement.”
That reinforcement arrived after my latest skin check.
“With your history, we can’t be too careful.”
Like someone with Tourette’s, I blurt out that I still tan.
I want Dr. Avram to scare me into a pasty existence.
“Of course you better be careful, but I understand the sun’s appeal,” he says.
Back home, I study my four stitches, knowing they’ll leave a scar.
I’m happy to have it.
The truth is, I worry about dying early or, at the least, getting wrinkles.
I find this angst ironic because my fear of aging is one reason I haven’t stopped tanning.
Perhaps I’m finally learning that I can savor summer conscientiously with sunscreen.
Not that you’ll find me sitting sullenly under an umbrella, the fairest maid on the beach.
Photo Credit: Sonja Pacho