Thank You for Visiting Denial - Come Back Soon

We all spend a fair amount of time living in denial. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, denial can be an enjoyable trip, a place where reality has been swept away and hidden from sight. In denial, everything around you is comic book cute, cleaned up and overly upbeat like at Disneyland or when you flip TV channels and find yourself coming face to face with the screechings of Rachael Ray.

Unfortunately, our occasional trips to denial can come to a very abrupt end. That wonderful sea-side vacation for which you paid top dollar can quickly erode into a chorus of crying children, cranky spouses and hurt feelings. And that helpful woman at the make-up counter who promises a complete transformation sometimes delivers more Bozo than beautiful.

Last Wednesday morning, I found myself happily living in denial. I had a short list of things that that needed to be done, nothing earth shattering or life-changing, just a few simple errands: pick up new Metrocard, get cash from ATM, buy coffee. OK, no denial there. However, since an upcoming trip with R necessitates my passport be renewed, I decided to add one more thing to the list - have new passport photo taken. Just one quick stop at the photo place up the street, a quick pose and 5 minutes later I’d go merrily on my way. No big deal.

Ah, denial. You tricky devil you. If only you had stopped me from actually looking at my picture.

Why is it that even though we look in a mirror at least a couple times each day, we rarely see the changes time brings to our faces? It’s fairly common to not notice the small lines forming around our eyes or the wrinkles running across our forehead. As we age, most of us still have the ability (some might say delusion) to see ourselves as that adorable young man-child (or woman-child) who could still get a few free drinks from the hot bartender with just a few bats of our eyelashes. At least we do until some guy with a camera drops a 2 x 2 passport photo in our hands and reality smacks us between the eyes.

My first thought when glancing at the image in my new passport photo was “Who’s that old guy and why is he wearing my clothes?” This was certainly not the wrinkle-free-smooth-as-a- baby’s-butt-don’t-look-a-day-over-20 face I winked at every morning in the mirror. This was the image of some middle aged man who had clearly seen better days. This was, gulp, my father! Suddenly a new item appeared on that harmless list of errands: Buy Botox – in bulk!

But denial was not to be out-done by something so mundane as reality. Moving quickly to put some space between me and the photo, my mind flashed back to something that had happened the previous month. While out one night with my sister I had been asked for my ID upon ordering a drink. True, I hadn’t been carded in years and yes, it was a very dark bar and well OK, the policy of the place was that they asked absolutely everyone for their ID. But as long as I had that memory of being asked I could easily push all thoughts of the passport photo out of my head and think “See? You still look the same as you used to.” And as the new photos dropped into my pocket and out of sight I swear there was a small voice whispering

“Welcome back to denial. We missed you.”