Great Goggly Moggly

I'm having goggle problems.

Ever since I started swimming this summer, I've had issues with the way my goggles fit. The problem is not that they bother me while I'm swimming. They actually don't bother me at all. But they do leave large goggle-sized bags under each eye that take hours to go away.

As I ask around, I'm finding that no one else seems to suffer with this problem. In the locker room at the pool, I am the only water-soaked racoon changing out of her suit. I don't get it. I suffer with these marks for hours, and everyone else leaves the pool looking like a wet version of how they came.

"You don't want the straps too tight," suggests a friend. "And make sure your nose piece isn't too big. Or too small."

Check. Check. Check.

"Don't press them in to your face too much," adds someone else. "And you want them lower on your eye, like this."

I make the necessary changes, each time hopeful that this will be the end of my facial depressions. No luck.

One day, during a cleaning frenzy for guests coming over, I went so far as you wear my goggles while I worked around the house. This offered the three-fold advantage of 1) working on my goggle problems, 2) laughter upon seeing my reflection, and 3) freaking out the boys.

"You'd better be careful," said my swimming partner when I told her what I was up to. "You're going to look very tired when your company comes."

Because the problem with the goggles isn't just that they leave marks, but that they age me considerably.

"Those lines make you look old," said Paul one morning as I stared in the mirror. "But not forty or fifty. More like sixty or seventy."

While I was, of course, offended -- his comment explained A LOT.

Like the day I took one of the boys to see our pediatrician. I swam that morning, but it had also been a long weekend.

"What's wrong with him?," I asked Dr. N, concerned about my child and convinced he had a raging ear infection.

"I think he's like his mother -- just very, very tired."

"Oh, are you referring to these," I said putting my hand to my divots. "See, I swim and..."

And forget it. It's not fair to blame the goggles for everything.

I've tried going to the swim store, having them look at the goggles (their advice was buy a different style and see if that helps). Everyday I jump in the pool, I pray this will be it -- that the subtle strap adjustment and location of my ponytail under my swimcap will be the miracle cure.

Until then, I'll just wear my "I Swam This Morning!!!!!!" t-shirt (getting it made special) and take the compliments that I look good -- for my "age."