The Pale Girl Blues

I'm pale. Painfully so. I came to terms (mostly) with that fact years ago. I come from a long-line of pale people. I'm more than two-thirds Irish; it's just in my genes. But pale is not the world we live in. Just look at the Jersey Shore cast.

GTL, anyone?
courtesy: google image search

In high school, I rebelled against the pale. The hours I spent laying in a tanning bed were some of the most relaxing of my life. I loved tanning. Loved it. I loved the way it made my skin feel, the way I could relax under the fake beams of the fake sun. I worshipped the tanning bed. Unlike the sun, it would give me an actual, kind of, tan. The sun would just burn my skin and turn me into the red girl instead of the pale girl. I preferred pale. But the tanning bed gave my skin a slightly golden sheen (along with hundreds of new freckles...in addition to being pale, I also freckle). But alas, my days of tanning are now but a faded memory.


When I was in college, my Daddy started developing skin cancers on his face and hands. Turns out years of sun exposure with little or no protection had taken a toll on his naturally pale skin. This was a huge wake up call for me. My love affair with the tanning bed ended abruptly. I now get on my friends' nerves when I harass them about how they need to stop tanning.


Needless to say, I've been tan-less and pale for quite awhile now. During the spring and summer, I do enjoy getting outside as much as possible, but I have to slather on sunscreen to keep from burning and turning into Lobster Girl. So even in the middle of summer, I remain fairly pale, and while my husband loves my fair complexion, I usually hate it. Not because I hate fair skin. In fact, I love the look of a healthy, even ivory complexion, but such a complexion is a curse when you're trying to hide your emotions.

Not what I'd call an ideal tan.

Ladies and gentleman, I'd like to introduce you to splotching (or blotching as some might call it). The ugly cousin to blushing, splotching is an awful affliction that plagues my daily existence. It can best be described as a form of "spotty" blushing, and it typically pops up all over my chest and on my neck. Splotching makes it impossible to hide your true feelings about anything. Embarrassed about that giant mistake you made on an admissions evaluation? Up pops a splotch! Angry at the last-minute student trying to get enrolled in classes on the day the classes start?! Oh, there's splotches all over! Hell, if you even get a little warm in your over-heated office that for some reason never cools down even when they turn on the AC, you'll be covered in splotches! Notice splotches usually and most often make their presence known at work. Home and personal-life splotching almost never occurs...UNLESS, I scratch my skin or even touch it just a little too hard...then there it is.


The worst part about splotching? People usually think you have a rash or some other disease or something. I can't tell you how many people have looked at my neck or chest in complete disgust and said, "Ew! What's wrong with you?" "Is that a rash!?" "Oh, my gosh, your skin is horribly discolored!" Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But honestly, people do notice, and they almost always say something. And guess what pointing out the splotching does to the splotching?  You guessed right: it breeds more splotches!


So, yes, I do sometimes miss tanning. I miss the relaxation of it. And I miss being able to hide every little emotion that I have. But in spite of the splotches, I love my pale skin, and next season, I hear pale is the new tan.