Summer's ending. You've soaked up as much sun as your vacation leaves could permit. Are you feeling the peeling feeling?

Being born a morena, I literally soak up the sun. I'm a sponge lying on the beach, absorbing all the darkening rays possible. I tan even through a sunblock with 70 SPF. I tan even through a henna tattoo. And the tan or should I say, "the darkness" stays there, indefinitely. And unlike my melanin-challenged friends, I will never feel the peel.

These friends of mine (the melanin-challenged ones) always tell me how they envy my skin. So many tan amplifiers, tanning lotions, so much effort just to get the darkness that us pure pinoys abhor. If there was a tanorexic murdering psycho, he or she would probably love to skin us alive (or dead). And so why don't we feel good about not feeling the peeling feeling? Why do we actually welcome peeling, just to become white - and for some people, quite unevenly... white face, dark neck? It's so rampant here in Manila that I'm wondering if there's a shortage on mirrors. Nonetheless, the lotions and potions are endless.

I for one, grew up with people practically placing fair skin on a pedestal (thanks mostly to my mother, who walked around Boracay in a long-sleeved polo). The goal was to be white. Because more clothes would look good on you, more guys would like you, more girls would want to be like you. It's silly isn't it. And it took me a while to peel out of this mentality. After all the papaya soaps, lightening lotions and peel-inducing concoctions, you'd realize that there's really no way it can be done. You're born with it and so live with it. Just take all your skin in and give out a big, burning sensation-free sigh of self-satisfaction.

So here I am. Tanned, unpeeled and proud. No matter what my mother says.