Schools out for the summer, which means no more stress, you finally have free time and come-cooked meals, the sun is shining brightly outside...Oh, please. Anything but the sun.
You see, if you look anything like me, you either look pasty white like Casper the friendly ghost or a brightly well cooked lobster. There is no in between.
Even though I realize this fact, at least for the first sun of the year I completely forget that this is a thing and burn like hell. It never fails.
This might be an side effect of living in the mountains for most of the year and not having to deal with a whole lot of sun. Or maybe it's just because I am a negligent moron about putting sunscreen on. Who knows?
First of all, it is so easy for me to burn altogether. I'll be in the sun for an hour and then my body will get to the infamous lobster red that I am known for far and wide during the summer months.
Once I get to the nice glorious red that rivals that of Rudolph's nose, one of the issues is caring for that burn-which anyone who has ever had a sunburn can attest can be annoying with having to put lotion on multiple times a day. Then, when the burn is starting to heal your body starts to peel...everywhere, and your body becomes half peeling skin and half regular skin so frustrating.
Then you get people asking you all the time "does your sunburn hurt?" No, random colleague, it feels like a light stream of flowers and daisy's over my body... yes, it hurts, come on, man use your common sense! Along with these questions comes the constant poking of the sunburn. Like, really you are seriously poking my sunburn? This is really happening? Alrighty then.
Sleeping the night after you get the sunburn is horrid, mainly because every part of your body seems to just burn, is hot, and you won't seem to be able to sleep at all. After trucking through this, you do start to heal up though.
During this entire healing process your body starts to have this slight sting that is constantly there, and yes, you do end up getting used to it, but at the same time, it is very frustrating to have to deal with. Along with the sting comes the itching when your burn eventually decides to start healing. When I say itching I don't mean anything light, I mean it itches so much that all you want to do is to scratch it which you know that you should not do if you want your burn to heal but dear God, does it feel good. Putting lotion on helps a little bit, but it will at times make the itching even worse that before.
Seeing as this happens to me almost every summer, you would think that I would have learned by now to lather myself in sunscreen, right? Yeah, not so much. I'll remember to put sunscreen on in the beginning which stops the inevitable burn from becoming horrendous but I still don't ever seem to put enough on ever.
So don't forget to stay lathered up this summer, or else they'll have to throw you into a pot of boiling water with the other lobsters.
