Regrets

Regrets are something I think about A LOT. I watched sadly, as my dad grew older and deeper into his regrets before he passed away at the young age of 59. I swore I wouldn’t be that way, but yet, I did ( and sometimes still do )allow my insecurities to hold me back from doing many things I really want to do. The reality that death really IS in the cards for me at some point (hopefully much later than sooner) had made me change this about myself.  I find the older I get, the less caring I am about what everyone else thinks and the MORE  aware I am of my capabilities.

So the other day as I was thinking about the new year and how I want to make it a better one, I did some research on regrets. These are the top 5 regrets people have on their deathbed according to this article from The Next Web.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

At some point through my 30 + years, I can identify with each one of these. I still have issues with 1, 2, and 5, but thanks to Facebook #4 is no longer a problem, and if you ask anyone really close to me, #3 has never really been a problem. Sometimes I think they may prefer I don't share every single one of my feelings, but I am not one to hold things in for very long.

  

This is definitely a quote I believe. When I look back, I am bothered much less by the things I did, than those I didn’t do. Missed opportunities make me question where I could have been. What I could have done? Thinking about the auditions I didn’t attend because I didn’t feel “good” enough, makes me sad for the life I could have had as a dancer or actress, but just didn’t believe in myself enough.  Not doing some things also kept me from being truly happy. A lot of times I didn’t do things just because I felt like other people didn’t want me to. It was all about making someone ELSE happy.

Doing things, on the other hand,  may have led to some mistakes, may have given me a mini vacay down the wrong life path, but they mostly provided me with experiences to either enjoy or learn from, and opportunities to do better the next time.  Most of the mistakes that were important enough to remember, don't really don’t affect me all that much today. Notice I said "MOST" that's because there are some I regret OH SO MUCH.

There are about 3 things I regret doing in my life. One of them was not a very big deal. I wish I had asked my best friend to take me to prom, rather than the guy I liked who was older than me. But I've managed to live just fine with that one. :)  Another affected my parents and hurt them. I am not ok with anything I have ever done that has hurt anyone else. If I hurt myself, that's on me, but I don't like hurting others.  The last one..well..it changed the course of my life AND quite possibly the length of my life- tanning.

If you read my last post about my tanning experiences, you know that most of my tanning was done outside with some sort of SPF (though never enough).  But I did have a brief stint with indoor tanning. I didn’t do it for long, 6 to 8 months maybe, I couldn’t afford more than once a week or less, but I am sure I had some marathon weeks in there. 

 Thing is, it didn’t need to be for long. 

Source

The thing that bothers me most is that my gut told me it wasn’t good. I was against it, until a guy I knew started doing it. I thought he started to look better and slimmer. I asked him about it and shared what I thought and he told me I was wrong.  He assured me that tanning indoors was actually SAFER than tanning in the sun. I was doing myself a favor. I must have really wanted to believe him, because I did against my gut feeling. This is definitely the biggest thing I have ever regretted DOING.  Too bad this was JUST before the explosion of the internet. I would have done my research and stayed away. Too little too late now, though.

Fortunately for young girls (and older people today) we have the web, Facebook, Twitter, books like Pale Girl Speaks,  and blogs like Adventures with my Enemy Melanoma,   Melanoma Girl, My Journey with Melanoma, Respect the Rays, Black is the New Pink, Beyond my Tan, and many, many more.

There is NO reason for us to NOT know today.

There is a great article in Women's Health (with the gorgeous and NOT super tan Emily Van Camp on the cover) all about the rise in melanoma rates in young girls since the explosion of indoor tanning. If you read nor share anything else with those you love, please, PLEASE read and share this article.

On that note, I will leave you with two memes I created especially for this post. I hope you enjoy them.

 Thank you for reading. Until next time, practice safe sun.

Tanning Come Full Circle

By now, you all know that I've had melanoma, and currently, I have no evidence of disease (Thank you, God), but what you may not know is my history with the sun.  And of course, the history of me NOT loving the skin I was in.

That's me on my first birthday. Check out those funky dining room chairs. Apparently in the 70's all the great portraits were taken of models sitting on the dining room table, or was that just my house? 

As you can see, I wasn't a very tan baby. My heritage can be traced back to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spain, Ireland, Germany, and the Canary Islands, so I am quite a mix. 50% of me is made of the first three, 50% of the last three.  

These are my siblings. Of the four of us, I was the only one who burned BEFORE  I tanned and when I tanned, it wasn't very dark and didn't last for very long. I also freckled the most of us all. So there were times when I definitely felt like the outcast. 

 My older brother and I (notice he is darker than me, but does have some freckles)

My younger sister (She is MUCH darker..and topless. She was quite the exhibitonist
 in her youth) Check out the boombox I got for my birthday! Child of the 80's.

 My youngest sister.  Again, MUCH darker than me (and much more relaxed). When you're the baby, you can sit back and relax all the time.

 She hasn't changed much since then.

 That's me all the way to the right. Sexy, huh? 

I grew up in Key West, so we did a lot of swimming and fishing and picnicking for the first 10 or so years of my life.  I assume my parents put sunscreen on me at that age, but it wasn't really "big" back then.

As I got older, we didn't go to the beach quite as often, mostly on the 4th of July or 3 day weekends.  My very dark hair, dark eyes, and dark eyebrows seemed to make me appear even more pale in comparison to everyone else I knew, so I decided that tanning would make me much more attractive.  I wasn't a size 0 like all of the other teenage girls, so I did most of my tanning at home on my porch, because I didn't want to go to the beach with everyone else. I would lay outside on a towel with another towel on my face (so I wouldn't get any more freckles) and a fan blowing on me (so I wouldn't pass out from the heat.) Although I did pass out one day. I walked inside from laying out to get a drink and blacked out right in the middle of the living room floor. Scared my parents to death!

At the time I was using sunscreen...SPF 8. Yep. Back then I remember 3 numbers being easily available, SPF 2, SPF 4, and SPF 8.  If I didn't burn, I would have used SPF 2. I always wished I could. I thought it would make me tan SO much better.

While working at home for the summer during college one year, I spent quite a bit of time out on the boat. Believe it or not, I didn't really go out on the boat while growing up down there. But this particular summer, I had a friend with access to one, so i took every advantage! 

This is the first and last picture I will ever post of me in a bikini, lol. Well, that is unless I ever get Gunnar Peterson as my personal trainer. 

This day, I spent the entire day on a float in the water with the sun reflecting off the water onto my skin. Notice the lovely RED line just above the white skin under my bikini.  I am certain I was in pain after that.  My sister saw this pic and reminded me that I poured vinegar all over me after this burn, to take the sting out. By this time I was using an SPF 15, but mixing it with tanning accelerator whenever I had it. I am certain I didn't reapply nearly enough and am sure it wasn't waterproof sunscreen. 

Me, after another day out on the boat.

Then after graduating from college, even though i had always been against tanning salons, I let a friend convince me that they were indeed, safer than tanning in the sun. So over a period of 6 to 8 months in my early 20's, I used tanning beds. It was a quick and easy fix to give me the tan I wanted. I stopped when I noticed I was getting wrinkles around my eyes. Ironic, isn't it? I didn't like the idea of getting old before my time, but never thought about the fact that I was increasing my chances of dying before my time! I started using SPF 30 on my face, daily after that. Also, because shortly after I was put on Retin-A for my acne. You HAVE to wear sunscreen when you use that. Of course, I just put it on in the morning, never reapllying throughout the day. 

Finally, a miraculous thing happened! Self tanners really improved. You no longer had to look like one of Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompas. The new self tanners  actually made you look brown instead of orange. There were, however, a few unfortunate side effects.  There was the "strange" odor and color rubbing off on your clothes. Even still, I preferred to have color and possibly smell weird and stain my clothes, than be pale. Since I was living in an apartment and finally had a pool to lay out by, I had found the perfect combination of weekend tanning and self tanner throughout the week. I was darker than I ever was.  And as a result, I was more confident than I ever was. 

  

My combination of laying out and self tanner

The one thing I didn't do was tan for my wedding. By my late 20's I had finally decided that tanning was going to age me too soon, and it was no longer worth the effort. I stuck to my self tanner and used very little the week of my wedding, because my dress cost way too much money to get stained.  When I did tan, I was putting 30 on my body now. I didn't want to burn or age or get skin cancer.

Five years, two babies, and one new mole on my neck later, I was, pretty much as white as I was in the picture of my first birthday, with the exception of the pigmentation that was showing up from sun damage and hormones. I had come full circle.  All those hours sweating in the heat, all that money spent on self tanners and tanning sessions, all the time wasted trying to be a shade that I wasn't meant to be. Color that wouldn't EVER stay.  All of the damage to my skin trying to make me be "prettier" when in reality, I was causing damage that would some day make me "uglier."  The true sadness of it all is that "pretty" and "ugly" was more important to me than "life" and "death."

The last time I "tanned" was my first and only spray tan 6 months before I was diagnosed with melanoma.  I was the only non African -American in one of my best friend's weddings. She picked out a very PALE pink, which i was certain would wash me out and make me stand out more than the bride, so I got my first spray tan. I have to be honest, I loved it. 

Although, after reading about spray tans lately, I don't think I will be doing it again, for many reasons. One of them being the fact that I want to love myself as I am and I want others to love themselves as they are.  Why should I try to change? Looking back now, I can find many pictures of myself where my paleness was really beautiful.  

No more tans for me..that I promise. I do still have a yearning for some self tanner on occasion, but then that would go against everything I am trying to change for the better. 

I hope this encourages people to love themselves just the way they are. I also hope you share this with younger people, especially young girls. I cannot go back and change my mistakes, but I can help others to not make the same ones.

Thank you for reading. Until next time, practice safe sun!