The Coffee Diet Makes You Old

So I am a coffee drinker.

I don't really mean, I drink coffee occasionally - or that I'll accept a cup of coffee with dessert at your dinner party. I mean, when I arrive at the ISP lounge in the morning, I start the coffee pot first thing, make a whole pot so I can share with my friends, and then drink the whole damn pot because my friends are mostly Mormons who don't drink coffee, and I am a Midwesterner born and bred and can't abide wasting food. Aren't I sweet?

Anyway, I've noticed over the last year or so that although I've yet to see the dark side of 25, I have wrinkles. Actually fine lines, but as someone who has yet to buy a car or work a full time job, I think we can stop quibbling about the details. They're wrinkles. In my forehead.

I bought some wrinkle cream, which made me feel like I was a lot older than I actually am. People my age across America are doing beer pong and tanning, and I am drinking countless cups of coffee and abhoring the time I spent in the sun in my youth. Which isn't much, because my dad is a redheaded Scots-English man, and my mother is as fair as I am (though since I'm on the subject of Mom, everyone I know says she looks very young for her age, as does Grandma, so thanks for the genes, sorry I am trashing my share with coffee).

I'm convinced it is the coffee, because otherwise I'm healthy! I do yoga every week, and pilates about every other - I don't drink soda, because we don't keep it in the house. We eat meat-free on Fridays, and I drink plenty of water and eat things that have fiber. I wear SPF 50 because while freckles are attractive, sunburn is not. I'm doing all those good things that people say to do, and I still have wrinkles. It couldn't be anything else, right? I mean, I don't even go out into the sun - I sit inside, all day, with my laptop and textbooks, and study.

Oh, wait.

Maybe it's med school.