I have coffee with a friend on most Saturdays and inevitably the subject that comes up is our changing bodies, menopause and other things associated with the joy of getting older. One day my friend reached across the table and tugged on a hair. She thought it was a loose hair from my head, but it was actually attached to my chin!
Menopause appears to be the final battle before you give up completely. You’ve survived puberty, childbirth, and the fashion choices of several decades. But now, your body has decided it’s time for one more trick.
It starts innocently enough. A missed period here, a hot flash there, a mood swing or two. You think, “Okay, this isn’t so bad.”
Then one morning, you look in the mirror, with just the right lighting and scream.
Sprouting from your chin like a rebellious teenager sneaking out past curfew is a rogue hair. Not just any hair. No. This is a thick, wiry, jet-black ninja hair that’s somehow grown to the length of Rapunzel’s braid overnight. Once you finally locate your tweezers, you discover that your eyesight has decided to pack up and leave at the exact same time. It is a cruel twist of hormonal fate.
What cruel biological deal is this? Who designed this “software” update and can I please go back to Windows XP?
Now every attempt to pluck the offending strand becomes a high-stakes game of “Guess Where the Hair Is.” You hold up the magnifying mirror, if you own one, or a magnifying glass, only to discover that while the hair is clearer, so are every one of your pores, age spots, and memories of bad decisions from the 80’s and beyond.
You try to aim the tweezers with military precision, but your hand trembles. Is it menopause? Early onset tremors? Is it caffeine? All you know is you’ve either pulled the hair, pinched your skin, or started a whole new chin wrinkle. Wait is that a bruise I see?
Sometimes you’ll feel the hair before you can see it, always at the most inopportune times; A board meeting, church, a date! It’s like some kind of reverse sixth sense: “I feel something sharp grazing my neck. Is it a mosquito? A spider? No, just my own follicular betrayal.”
And don’t EVEN try plucking it in the car mirror. That’s how accidents happen. Because the second you spot one in the rearview mirror, your brain goes into full red alert. You will either not be able to leave your parking space until the hair is gone, or you will have to pull over to the side of the road and try to remedy the little nuisance!
Look, menopause is wild. Your body forgets what temperature it should be, your moods are directed by a rodent on espresso, and your forehead wrinkles start migrating to your knees while chin hairs declare independence. It’s a lot.
But we laugh. Because if we didn’t, we’d cry… and then sweat through our shirts for no reason while buying toothpaste at Target .
So, here’s to you, you menopausal warrior. Keep your tweezers sharp, your magnifying mirror strong, and your sense of humor even stronger.
And find a few good friends to share the laughter with.
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