Skip to main content

The Gray in the Mirror

I've got a nice little headache brewing this morning. Perhaps that's because I looked in the mirror and there's no doubt about it: I'm aging.

I've done pretty good, so far, with the Aging Thing. By "pretty good" I mean I weigh about what I did in college, I don't own a single pair of "mom jeans", and my hair is still longish. These are, to me, age-indicators and I've done my best to meet these standards -- at times surpassing them by wearing juvenile baseball jerseys, Converse knock-offs, and taking wacky dance classes with young college girls.

However, the person looking back at me in the mirror shrugs off these attempts at camouflage to reveal a very real, aging woman, and reminds me that there is a difference between youthful and youth. So, while I may be youthful in spirit and activity, I am not young.

Later, I caught a glimpse of myself again, this time in the visor mirror in the car, and I think I saw a gray nose hair. Now that sucks. I remember the day I looked down after showering and discovered my first gray pube. Who wants to have sex with THAT? I thought. Fortunately, my husband did. It's not broken, is it? I'm not sure he actually said that, but that was the sentiment. So I learned to live with it (now them). (An occasional Brazlian bikini wax doesn't hurt the situation, either. Ok, it hurts, but you know what I mean.)

Then I stopped dying my hair (on my head) and noticed the grays had spread upward. That's fine. Whatever. I was determined to embrace my grays for as long as possible. Besides, a shiny gray hair is like an accent... a sparkle, if you will... that draws the eye. I don't mind if a stray gray draws attention to my head. (Or my hoochie, for that matter.)

But my nose? No. This cannot be.

So, tonight I'll spend a little quiet time alone in the bathroom with a pair of tweezers. Mommy needs her privacy. Go away. No, you may not watch! And while the face staring back at me in the mirror will shake her head as if to say, Who are we kidding?, I will smile back at her, hold up my tweezers, and answer, Me!

Comments

Dating Trooper said…
Oh my god I am going through the EXACT same thing! All I see when I look in the mirror or pictures of myself are my "smile wrinkles" around my eyes. They are laying the road map for what I will look like when I'm old. My skin feels thinner, more sensitive. And let's not forget that I am having my SECOND hip surgery and my knees crackle with every step I take on the stairs. How can this be????
But hey, at least everyone has to go through it eventually.
Rima said…
Are you telling me that a person's PUBIC HAIR can turn gray? My ears are plugged and I'm singing "lalala" in my head. Because I had totally overlooked this very obvious possibility.

Good luck with the tweezers. Ouch!
Dawn said…
HAHAHA! Love it. Not that you are finding unwanted gray hairs, but the fact you too request privacy when doing certain grooming things with tweezers.

Popular posts from this blog

About This Blog

Right off the top, it's a goofy name. I was looking for a new name for my blog, and then one morning I had the following exchange with my husband. We were taking our daughter to preschool and found ourselves following a well-dressed mom wearing a cute little skirt and high heels. I tilted my head to one side like a puppy noticing something strange for the first time. Michael also tilted his head, but was thinking of something else. "How come you don't wear skirts and high heels to work?" he asked. "She must be freezing. It doesn't seem practical." "She doesn't seem to mind." "I suppose not." Two heads tilt to the other side. "Oh well, I guess I'm more of a cords and fleece kind of girl." Two heads straighten. And there you have it -- a blog title based entirely on what I like to wear in the wintertime. Talk about impractical. The former title was Domestic Irritation. I liked that title a lot -- i

Score One for the Bad Guys

Apparently, Lizzy and Samantha have a soft spot in their hearts for the bad guys. After all, in their world the bad guys always get shot, beaten, or killed by super heroes, they always land in jail, and they’re never attractive. So when I heard strange phrases in hushed tones coming from the toy room the other day, phrases like, take off his clothes ... and hand me that bug ... and, put that on his vagina , I had to ask: What is going on in there?! After some debate between the two of them (n o, don’t tell mommy ... it’s OK, just don’t tell daddy ... and so on) they finally fessed up that they were playing a game with Barbies and other creatures wherein the bad guys win. Here’s how it works: In this game, the bad guys torture the good guys by making them take off all their clothes and then placing mind-controlling bugs on their vaginas . The bugs contain a virus that infects their hosts, thus enabling the bad guys to control the actions and behaviors of the good guys. Ergo, the b

Got No Class, Got No Clue

Soccer, kung fu, or gymnastics? Art, piano, or dance? Fencing? I want to enroll Elizabeth in some sort of class, but it's just not going well. I'm not sure if the problem is me... OK, it is me . Take ME out of the equation and the "problem" magically disappears. Lizzy is just not interested in joining a team or taking a class, and Michael isn't keen to sign her up (and thus spend money) for a class she won't enjoy or may not participate in fully. He has a point. We enrolled her in soccer last year, and while most kids ran up and down the field kicking their balls, Lizzy stopped to examine a flower. When the kids stood in "ready position" (standing in line with one foot atop their soccer balls), she sat on her ball at the end of the line. While other kids weaved their balls around little orange traffic cones, Lizzy picked up a cone, turned it upside, placed her soccer ball on top of it, and pretended to lick it like an ice cream cone. That is Lizzy i