It’s embarrassing, quite frankly.  I’m the one who yells at everyone to put their sunblock on.  I’m the one carrying around extra bottles in case someone forgot.  I’m the one preaching, preaching, preaching about sun safety and how to avoid skin cancer.

And I got burned.

Granted, it was all in the name of fun and friendship, but I feel foolish now with red skin from my neck down.  (I’m extra cautious about my face and it remained nicely white despite the exposure equal to the rest of my body.)  I work in a dermatology clinic.  Not only do I feel foolish for having gotten sun to begin with because of my own beliefs about sun safety, but I’m a complete contradictory fool telling others about sun safety!

My best friend and I were just lazying the day away, enjoying the music, the splashing children, the cool water lapping against our bellies, the thick August breeze drying our hair, flipping magazine pages and swapping stories.  We always lose track of time when we’re together.  Always.  Minutes fly into hours and we are still just blazing away catching up…from one week ago.  We just have too much fun.

I feel bad even complaining about the burning, aching pain all over my body because it was my own fault.  But under my breath, I mutter a lot of bad things and the second I get home from work, it’s off with the clothes (and not in a sexy way either, lest you be mistaken).

So I’m wearing short-sleeved turtlenecks to work and taking ibuprophen every 6 hours.  Day 3 and onward…  Lesson learned.  It won’t happen again.  I feel like the redness of my skin is sinking into my body with every breath, popping out new moles and freckles, creasing more wrinkles, and causing more permanent damage.  It’s not the looks; it’s the young people I’ve seen at work with positive biopsy reports of basal cells.  That is why I believe it sun safety.

Layer it on, folks.