Mourning my Collagen

I looked down recently and saw that someone had replaced the skin on my legs with elephant hide. Yes, indeed, as I dutifully climbed the outside stairs at a nearby park, congratulating myself on strong quads and hamstrings, I happened to glance down and - wham! - buzz-kill; there were dimples and wrinkles where my smooth skin used to be.

I've come to terms with the deepening wrinkles around my eyes and on my neck by never looking in the mirror, but it just isn't fair to see the skin on my legs detach from its foundation and go sliding off in whatever direction it pleases.  Like an old flame, my collagen has left the building, and I never knew how much I cared until it was gone.

After doing some research, I'm even more irate. Women's eggs have a pre-programmed end date, and our estrogen production declines as the eggs lose their bounce. With the loss of estrogen comes - you got it - the sharp drop in collagen, that magic stuff beneath our skin that keeps it smooth and glowing. The worst part is that men don't have an expiration date on their sperm, so even though testosterone decreases somewhat over time, it doesn't have such a pronounced affect on their wrinkles.

So my husband, eighteen months younger than I, will look progressively more young by comparison?  That is so unfair. The babies came out of my body, and the task of cleaning the cat litter box falls to me - shouldn't I catch a break on the collagen?

And if matter and energy are conserved in this universe - nothing new created and nothing old lost - who gets my supply of collagen? Perhaps a new baby snagged it, or my glowing teenage daughter caught it by osmosis. If anyone sees my old collagen, tell it I miss it and wish it would come back!