A DOWNWARD SAG and hooded gaze now greet me when I consult the mirror, despite a ridiculously expensive French eye cream, which I eke out each morning (I think it works like adhesive and sort of props up the folds of skin, a Last Stand similar to the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike). Soon I will be peering out of veritable corridors of flesh, as if I am retreating into myself as I grow older.   
 
I’m sad about this, mostly because of the bloodhound look (cute on a dog, less so on me). But it would be so much worse if the skin in question were unnaturally taut, the eyes pulled slightly to the sides of my head, as they are on women who have “had work.” On The Good Wife, have you noticed how Christine Baranski’s tight-around-the-eyes skin makes her look like a space alien? I love everything about her and Diane—the acerbic, grown-up lawyer she plays on the show—except that.
 
When I was at the dermatologist the other day, I mentioned The Eye Thing. She scrutinized me in a way I can only call acquisitive. I am fonder of her than most of my medical support team, but, like all skin docs, she does tons of nonsurgical facial “improvements” (I know because of brochures lying around the examination room). Despite my sense of decrepitude, I am not (yet) tempted by dermabrasion or chemical peels or laser treatments. She didn’t push it.
 
I am trying to think of my eyes as wise and beautiful rather than lost in the caverns of age. If they are the windows to the soul, I want mine to be truthful, not a deception.