Maybe our resolution for 2024 should be to forget changing ourselves and embrace what we have.
The rip sounded and I instantly started crying. I wasn’t in pain, really, but the unexpected trauma so close to my eyes made tears pour down my face. I yelped regardless.
“It doesn’t hurt,” my mother said, sending me a disapproving look.
I returned a “Are you kidding?” stare, wondering once again why she insisted I do this. Because of two cowlicks, I’ve always had bangs. Who saw my bushy eyebrows anyway?
I touched the pink area above my eyes where hair once existed, the sting still burning beneath what was left of my eyebrows. An arch now perched heavenward where before an ordinary stretch of brown rested.
“Don’t you look beautiful,” my mother gushed while I wondered what the big deal was. Then I wiped my eyes and blew my nose.
I still pluck my eyebrows, mostly when I remember and mostly when I’m visiting a hotel. They have those lighted super mirrors to make it easy. (They also highlight things like wrinkles and age spots, so be warned.)
Once you start plucking, eyebrows grow back in and look worse, little baby hairs that don’t match and proclaim to the world that you’re lazy and only clean up your eyebrows when you’re on the road. Which for me is about once a month.
I’m seriously thinking of letting this exercise in vanity go. I’m more concerned with that one wiry whisker that pops out of my chin. What on earth did God have in mind with that?
But I still hear my mother’s voice when it comes to my eyebrows.
“They’re so bushy,” she used to say.
And yes, they really are. So along with everything else about me — my big feet, my clumsiness, my allergies with makeup — I’m failing miserably at being a girl. At least, what society deems a female.
Then I met Christina. Just a random woman I met on a press trip.
“You have the most beautiful eyebrows,” she told me.
“What?” I asked, looking around to see if she was speaking to someone else.
“They’re great,” she responded.
And I hadn’t plucked them in ages.
This past year I stayed in a lovely hotel on the Gulf Coast and the bathroom contained one of those lighted super mirrors. I pulled out my tweezers — never leave home without one — and started the process. Halfway through, I remembered Christina’s words. And that beauty is absolutely in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe my resolution for 2024 is to embrace reality and love the imperfections, which may be perfection after all.
As I gazed at my reflection, I lowered my hand. I focused on that nasty whisker instead.
Happy New Year Everyone!
