Control.

If you don't want wrinkles in the wrong places, don't make the wrong expressions.

One of the things I do in life is watch. Everybody people-watches, and I am no exception. But from a young age I was captivated by something that seems to not bother other people: expressions. Most people around me seem to not be concerned by their own expressions, by what their faces are doing. Why should anybody care, after all? It doesn't really matter that some people wear a perpetually annoyed expression, or some always look confused, some angry, some frowning - it's their face and it's not aimed at anybody in particular. In fact, most people don't seem to notice these expressions - at least, I've not seen anybody else watching people with as much fascination as me on public transport or in the streets, mentally cataloguing the lines of their expressions.

But it was important for me. From a fairly young age, I started to appreciate that I had a lopsided face, that I wasn't particularly pretty on the eyes, and one thing hurt: hearing people judge me and criticise me for my expressions. "Why are you sulking?" or "Look, I get that you're angry" and so on - but I wasn't. When I am angry, I cry. The day I understood this, was the day I understood that I needed to work on my face if I wanted to be accepted. I re-learned how to smile, how not to pull at the wrong parts of my face for it; I learned how to keep an expressionless face, how to manage my resting bitch-face, how to raise eyebrows but not frown them... an extensive exercise honed over the decades.

And now, I'm at the age where the first wrinkles start to hint on people's faces. Around me, some of my colleagues were talking of botox, of how they had frown lines and forehead creases... and for the first time I actually looked for those lines they told me they have and are offended by, and to my surprise... I realised that they do. Many of them have deep lines already from frowning.

I know where my lines will appear - there are little ghosts of them already - and they will be laughter lines at the corners of my eyes. I'm lucky, although that wasn't why I worked on my face when I was only a child.

Ultimately, we are the architects of our own wrinkles.