Written this morning but posted this evening at 5:30pm
So it's about 3:30 am and I woke up and can't get back to
sleep so I thought I would Blog. Doesn't it sound like a cool movie? Sleep has
been a real issue as I'm aging, BUT that's another Blog for another time.
Hair, remember when hair growing out of different parts of
our bodies was a BAD thing? Now I have to remember 'when ' was the last time
I shaved my legs, underarms and bikini areas. It's almost like having Alzheimer's
or an old movie like The Lost Weekend.
Any ways. I remember when I was in Jr. High and after
begging my mother for months to let me shave my legs and underarms, like all
the other girls, she finally relented. Back then as most of you remember, we
had to use dad's double sided razor. I think they've been outlawed now. These razors were deadly to a woman's body.
No underarms, bikini are or legs went un scarred, but thank goodness we were
still too young to worry about the Bikini area at this age as our experience
with these razors would have probably made us barren. I still have nightmares
about running with these razors and falling in a pit of them…Ugh!
Now I was a pretty hairy girl in my younger days (including last
year). Not a large gorilla, but small chimp would be about right. When mom said
okay, I was giddy with excitement and even though my mother warned me that "Once you start shaving, you never
stop", I wanted this.
I shaved my arm pits first then sat on the side of the sink
and shaved my legs next. I don't think I cut myself then, but I can remember
the legs looking like I had been in the war or attacked by the chainsaw crazy
killer who preyed on young couples in parked cars.
I was so excited to go to school the next day to show off my
clean shaven legs, (I didn't show anyone my armpits, just didn't seem right).
My girlfriends were excited for me. Much like boys when they have a 'right' of
passage to becoming a man, this is a woman's right of passage second only to
the period (sad isn't it!). So here I am in school telling my girlfriends the
good news and showing them my legs when one of the girls, I've forgotten her
(Charlotte – hated her) asks me why I didn't shave the backs of my legs. Dumb
founded I had to think quickly. Back of the legs…Damn, I only shaved the front
and there are TWO sides…crap! I said the only thing I could come up with…"Hummm my MOM wouldn't let me!" She
didn't want me to shave so she said I could only shave the fronts for now and
if I did okay I could shave the back later" Stupid girls, they bought
it! They even felt sorry for me that my mother was so strict. I still feel kind
of bad about blaming my mother for that and many other things which again are
for later issues that I will need to discuss on my Blog. Maybe I do need a
therapist. Don't they usually tell you it's your parents fault?
So I ran home and shaved the backs of my legs and began my
49+ years of SHAVING!
Back to the present day. Last January I was helping my friend Patty (Hi
Patty) on some stuff at her house and she gave me a random present. You know how
fun it is to get Random presents? Sometimes there really cool random gifts that
you go "Oh wow!" and other times there just like" Oh,
thanks", that's nice and move on? Well Patty always gives cool random
presents and this time she gave me a 10X hand mirror for my purse. Now I have a
magnifying mirror in my bathroom that I check every morning for stray hairs and
it works good. BUT this 10X sucker is amazing! One look and I realized that I
had been walking around with a forest on my upper lip and chin for years! Wow,
so how long has my face been a forest? What about that job interview I had 5
years ago, was it there then, did the interviewer see it? Does my dentist have
to throw up after I leave his office? It really made me start to look back over
the years and who were close enough to visit the forest. Talk about needing
therapy now!
Now I've had the 'stray' 1 inch long hair on my face before
and said "How the heck did that get
there?" Believe me I checked my chin every day and no way that hair
was there this morning. It must be those vitamins and hormones I now take or
something. Kind of like the 10ft woman who grew overnight, some hairs are just like
that.
The mirror is great and it goes everywhere with me (I had to
draw the line at having it out in church…just wasn't appropriate) but Patty,
you should have included a pair of tweezers with it. If you're going to give a
gift like that it should be complete with tweezers so people can get to work on
the forest right then and there! I was in agony running to the bathroom every
few minutes to borrow tweezers to see if I was able to complete the deforesting
or if the hairs had suddenly grown back. BUT I will say it was a cool gift.
I've always had angst about hair on my face (and other
areas) because as my mom aged, she quit shaving and tweezing. I often felt
embarrassed for her and ashamed when I was out in public with her.
I didn't know how to talk to her about it. She also got to
where she wouldn't go out in public much and let herself go. I loved my mom and
I miss her terribly, I don't want to become my mother, but I can see where she
just got tired of clearing the forest herself.
So, as my friends and my daughters, I want us to promise one
another that if we see a forest growing on our legs (only counts if we're
wearing shorts or skirts), faces and armpits (I'm too old for the full bikini
but …yes event the bikini IF I am in a swimsuit) as we're aging, we will be
united in reminding each other to get a 10x mirror, a good razor and therapy if
needed!
Have a wonderfully free Hairless day and may no wild hair
appear unless it's an urge to go play Bingo!
God Bless
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