IS there a balm??

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the effort it takes just to maintain myself.

Right now it is my skin that’s getting under my skin.

I have very dry skin. The intensity of the dryness depends on the seasonal weather and the location of the skin on my body.

My feet are embarrassingly scaly and therefore require a major moisturizer. As a cold-natured person, I don’t wear sandals much because if any part of my body gets cold first, it’s my feet and if my feet get cold then EVERYTHING is cold. Plus, I have a hang-up about flip-flops (another topic for another day). Because it’s the middle of summer and people stare when you wear wool socks and combat boots, I will sometimes expose my toes, but only when the sun is shining.

Anyway, it takes a heavy duty moisturizer to get my feet anywhere close to being presentable for public viewing. Trouble is, the lotion I use on my feet is really too heavy duty for any other body part, except maybe my elbows.

I have the fair, freckly skin of a redhead. That includes my legs which can be scaly and starkly scary if seen in the light of day without sunshades. I have found a moisturizer that helps with the scaly flakes and also touts the added benefits of providing a gentle, natural glow if used over time. It does kind of take the scary out of my whiteness without looking like too much of a fake tan.

However, I can’t use that moisturizer on my feet or else the crusty edges of my heels and toes look like I’ve been walking on Cheetos or some other orange powdery cheese snack because the 'natural glow' cakes up in the creases and crevasses.

So, I’m just up to my thighs and it already takes two different lotions.

My face is no exception to the dry skin and it needs tending at least twice a day. This is a tricky spot because if the moisturizer I use on my face doesn’t have just the right balance, my skin breaks out even though my skin is dry. The ‘natural glow’ leg lotion doesn’t work here either because it really highlights and darkens the freckles and those other lovely brown spots some people call age spots. And truly, I need a different moisturizing strength at night than I do in the morning. Welcome lotion bottles number three and four.

And my eyes. More accurately, under my eyes. I have those fine lines under and around my eyes that all those commercials talk about. There are lots of serums out there to help, but they usually cost over $20 so I also have to deal with the trauma of a making major purchase, which causes more wrinkles. Lotion number five.

And my hands. I have to have some kind of lotion with me at all times for my hands. Bottles number six (on my desk at work) and seven (in my purse).

And we won’t even talk about my neck.

Or any other epidermic surface.

Except my dry, cracked lips. I keep a tube of ChapStick in my purse, one in my desk drawer at work, one in my car, one in my husband’s car, and several tubes in my bathroom vanity drawer. I don’t go anywhere without it. My favorite flavor is the vanilla mint, but peppermint and the medicated version are good too.

Which brings up another issue….all the different scents for all these lotions.

So, my skin is itchy and dry and I’m covered from head to toe in some kind of gooey lotion or another and I smell like a vanilla mint grapefruit eucalyptus petroleum plant.

Some days it is just too much to deal with.

Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken. Wail over her! Get balm for her pain; perhaps she can be healed. Jeremiah 51:8