I forget that I have freckles.
But then I look at pictures of myself and they are right there on my neck.
Had they migrated a little more north and made it's way up to my cheeks I think they would have been charming.
As it stands they're kind of awkward.
My mom used to worry about it when I was little. There were a series of surgeries and treatments I could of done to try and remove them. I'm glad she never succumbed to the demands from the rest of the family who always said that my neck freckles were ugly and that it would surely effect my body image when I was older.
In the 90s, when I was in middle school and the whole AIDS epidemic was hot news, the boys in my class would tease me and say that my freckles were AIDS. I was too busy playing with my friends (i.e flirting with the 8th grade boys) to really listen to the bullies in my class. I also think that deep down I knew that if AIDS was just freckles on someone's neck and nothing more, this world would be a lucky place. Needless to say my self esteem wasn't too damaged after middle school.
Christian is kind and has helped diminish any insecurities I have about my body. In fact he only uses lovely words when referring to my neck. Maybe that's why I never think about it.
The whole ugly neck talk around the dinner table was put to an end when my great-grandmother announced that my freckles were a result of me sucking on limes. Apparently the inevitable lime juice that would drip down my neck was burning my skin. Hence the freckles. So for a while I was forbidden to eat limes in front of my extended family. It was an annoying price I had to pay to get the uncles off my mom's back.
It worked.
And soon after my lime fetish continued
and has since blossomed into creative concoctions that involves all things lime.
Today I made limeaid pops and decorated it with the rest of Enzo's Halloween candy. We cut our stars using laffy taffy, made red stripes using red vines and what's the name of that other candy? I can only remember it in Portuguese.
I let the lime juice drip down my childrens' necks. I let it drip down my neck as we all soaked in the abnormally warm November sunshine.
Today was a good day
