I recently discovered, much to my dismay, that I am growing a beard. It is not a big beard, at least by most standards. It is, in fact, one single hair growing under my chin, which persistently keeps returning no matter how many times I eradicate it.
I don't where this hair came from, I only know it has never been there before. I don't understand why it has suddenly shown up on my chin, waving in the breeze like a solitary flag, curling delicately around itself on the vast underside of my otherwise unsullied orifice.
I feel that hair is mocking me, telling the world that I am, in a word, Maturing. One thing I have noticed over the years is that as women mature [don't you love that word, mature? Sounds so much classier than age, I think, sort of like something you do at a spa instead of just getting old, but maybe that's just me? Oh, wait, where was I?] they tend to grow hair in weird places that it doesn't belong. Places that, dare I point it out, men have hair that they, also, try to beat back with daily razor usage.
My lovely, and very young, daughter does not hesitate to point out this flaw, which is, for her, extremely embarrassing. She apparently would prefer that I maintain a dignity reserved for mothers who respect the inner needs of their teenaged daughters. It seems one of the foundations for upholding this dignity is that their mothers do not have chin hairs. I will even go out on a limb and state, for the record, that they would not be comfortable with their mothers looking like men in any other way, either, but that's another post.
The ironic part of all this is that the hair on my legs, which I have mercilessly attacked with chemical, mechanical, and soft wax techniques, is now getting thinner and lighter, to the point where it is almost unnoticeable. So while I must attend to my chin hair on a fairly regular basis, I no longer need to shave my legs to avoid looking like a chimpanzee. Why do you suppose that is? Do you think God has a sense of humor? Because it sure looks like it from where I'm sitting.
Speaking of sitting, that's an area of the body I won't mention at all, rest assured. But if I were to mention it, I would have to point out that it's very unfair of the exercise advocates to guilt you into getting up and off your backside just at the moment when it is finally perfectly adjusted for couch potato duty. But like I said, I don't talk about such things. This is a classy blog, informative, family friendly. Educational, even.
I am pretty sure that my daughter doesn't understand that someday she, too, will mature, and will probably have a daughter of her own to helpfully point out where she falls short of the ideal. I would not know this, except I myself may have been such an ignoramus at times in my unfettered, and obviously less informed, youth.
I seem to recall, when I was 15 or so, feeling that my mother was woefully uninterested in correcting her more obvious [at least to me] imperfections, thus compelling me to helpfully point them out, so she could stop letting herself go like that. I am fairly sure one by-product of all that assistance is that she is not as sympathetic to my plight, now that I am fighting the same battles, as she might otherwise have been. In fact, I think I might have heard a brief snicker the other day when I mentioned my own facial disfigurement, but I could be wrong.
I have also noticed, although I do not have the problem myself, that as women get older, many of them tend to develop that most masculine of facial features, the uni-brow. I have seen women glance at themselves in a bathroom mirror, and upon seeing a rogue offender, attack it with a ferocity that would shock even the most hardened of criminals. Instant execution seems to be their motto, and the sentence is carried out without further ado, as they whip out a tweezers they keep at the ready in their purse and yank that little sucker out of there. It's a harsh outcome for the brave little hair, but I'm with the woman. If you want to grow on my face, you had better get in the right line. I don't tolerate follicular dissension.
Another thing I have noticed about maturity is that you no longer see everything in sharp relief. It may be that your greater life experience allows you to put things into more appropriate perspective, but I think the most likely reason is because you simply cannot get anything into focus.
The other day I was at the grocery store and observed this woman, around my own age, who kept bobbing her head up and down and back and forth, looking for all the world like an unhappy jack-in-the-box. I was fascinated by this little dance, which went on for several long seconds, wondering if she was having a seizure or if she was just odd, when she glanced over at me, looking disgusted. I was prepared to apologize for staring when she uttered the words that brought us together as bosom buddies, "I am blind as a bat."
Ahhhhh. Clarity has been achieved. I sympathized, of course, since I also do the bobble-headed doll routine on a regular basis, and said, "It happens." We nodded at each other in solidarity as she finally found the exact position in which she could read the label, plucked the item she needed from the shelf with a heavy sigh and the expression, "THERE it is," and stalked away, still mad that life has brought her so low that she can no longer read letters that are an inch high and right in front of her nose. Maturity may be over-rated. Personally, I'd rather be able to see my needlework without a magnifying glass.
I, however, refuse to bow to the pressure of reading glasses, and prefer to continue my neck exercises. Have you noticed how men who wear reading glasses are considered distinguished? Dignified and learned, even. Right. Goes with the gray hair and the paunch, I guess. But women in reading glasses suddenly hear compliments such as, "You look great, for your age." I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to be the age where I look great in spite of it.
You really know you are getting older when your class reunion becomes lunch instead of dinner. My mother recently told me that her reunion was coming up, and they were meeting for lunch at a restaurant not too far from her small town. I laughed, of course, because it's kind of cute, but I know it's because people her age don't like to drive at night any more. Unfortunately, I understand that better all the time, since I have noticed recently that stop lights look like little red, yellow and green stars. In fact, the other night, I thought the stoplight at the top of the hill was someone's brake lights, and it took me far too long to realize I was the only one on the street. I think the term, seeing stars, was probably coined by someone over 45, don't you?
I have been five feet nine inches tall my entire adult life. I reached that lofty height around ninth grade, I think, and I have been there ever since. When I was a teen in high school, I hated being so tall, because all the cute girls are short little things who can barely reach the tops of their lockers, even in four inch heels.
As I got to be an adult, I realized that the cute little teenagers have become short housewives who cannot reach the shelf that they need at the grocery store. You know the shelf, the one with the shredded wheat and the grape nuts. Now they are dependant upon me to sustain their food supply, and I have felt pretty smug about it all.
Or at least I did until a recent trip to the doctor's office for an annual physical, another thing that gets a lot more interesting after 40, but we won't go into that now. It seems I have shrunk. I am now 5'8 1/2" tall. And apparently that is a very important half inch, because the compressed mass went straight to my stomach and my hips. I no longer have the concave stomach of the young and the beautiful, I am now fighting the five months pregnant look. I recently observed my profile in the bathroom mirror, and I was depressed to see that the term "paunch" could be applied to my stomach. I have noticed my face is less oval and more round lately, too.
Apparently, another sign of maturity is the rounding up of all your features, and I do mean rounding up. My weight is up. My clothing size is up. Even my shoe size has gotten bigger. But in a twist of fate that seems rather cruel, while my body parts are getting bigger, they seem to be migrating lower, losing the battle for altitude on a daily basis. [If you want to know why that is cruel, you would have to understand that until recently, I could have gone topless on any nude beach and been indistinguishable from your average guy. In fact, I have seen plenty of men who had more to work with, and who probably needed my supportive underclothing far more than I did.]
All you ladies know what I am talking about. When a woman of A Certain Age refers to everything heading south, I am here to tell you she is not referring to illegal aliens heading home. Perky no longer applies to any part of your body, and you have revamped your wardrobe to emphasize your face. Or your feet. Or really anywhere but your mid-section.
Have you ever noticed how mature women tend to wear large earrings but no necklace? Now I understand the strategy. If you distract them with your fabulous ear wear they will not look below the neck. Hat trick takes on a whole new meaning when you are my age.
Of course, this newly directed facial attention makes correcting the small defects that may be present that much more crucial, which brings me back to my chin hair. I am pleased to report that once again, my chin is undefiled, pristine and unblemished by anything out of place. I can once again face life with the assurance that, for today at least, I can keep my chin up, and there will be nothing to spoil the impression of the perfection that is me.
Well, okay, that's probably going a little too far. But at least my daughter won't have to be ashamed to be seen with me, and for the mother of a 16 year old girl, that's the highest praise you can get in a day. So I'm good.
Oh. By the way, keep your chin up! You're good, too.
