The secret to reducing crows feet...

You wake up in the morning and do the zombie shuffle to the bathroom.  The light goes on; your ill-prepared eyes close - too much light, too soon.  Your pasty mouth makes a smasking sound as you open and close it, you wonder what crawled in to die overnight.  You stick out your tongue, making sure that it isn't coated with a layer of scoopable kitty litter.  Your eyes finally focus as you lean in towards the mirror and that's when you see them.  The creases on the side of your face - the ones by your eyes - the... crow's feet.  It's not just dermatographia from the pillow case either.

The crow's feet have epic prominence this morning and you look like you've gone 10 rounds.  You poke the skin around your left eye - the puffiest eye...  It wasn't this puffy last night when you went to bed.  Did you have an allergic reaction to something?  Did one of the cats cold-cock you in your sleep?  There's no better word for it, your face looks... SMOOSHED.   poke - poke - poke...  It's as if all the skin has been pushed into a Shar Pei version of its regular self...

And that's when it hits you. Your face has been smooshed. You slept your face into its present state.  The weight of your head, as you slept on your side, has distorted your aging facial skin.

Let's face it, when a woman looks at those crow's feet on her face, its the rare bird who says: "Hey look at the aged beauty and character upon my visage!"  Age and character just doesn't seem to fly for the feminine set - it's not accepted and revered the way it is on the male form.

You've passed 40, you've tried your fair share of eye creams.  You've probably spent some cool pocket change on different varieties before you read the Internet articles telling you that once the lines are there, you're pretty much fucked.  Unless you're wealthy and can go the surgical or Botox maintenance route - those crow's feet are here to stay.  By the age of 47, you don't even really mind the crow's feet - it's the puffy smooshed bird nest by association that makes you die a little inside.

Fear not!  You don't need the bullshit (probably not literally made from bullshit) hundred dollar face creams.  You don't need Botox.  In a woman's fight to lessen the appearance of crow's feet and their accompanying bird nest, there is a simple solution.  One that we can all implement - starting today.  Are you ready?

REDEFINE THE TERMINOLOGY.  

How about this?  How about we call them what they actually are?  SMILE LINES.  I have SMILE lines. I've spent 47 years smiling.  That's almost half a century of smiling.  I can't and shouldn't want to erase these lines.  They're the marks of a life full of fucking good moments...  Of moments that made me smile,  giggle, snort, titter and guffaw with laughter.

The poofy smooshed face?  I've got something for that.

SLEEP ON YOUR BACK.

Let gravity be your friend.  Buy yourself a kick-ass, neck-supporting, Obus form pillow and convince that thin middle-aged facial skin, which I hope is chock full of smile lines, to slide earward overnight.  You'll thank me in the morning.