Every morning a strange woman looks back at me from the mirror. The woman has grey hair. The look is startling. After seeing a brown-haired reflection for over 74 years it just doesn’t seem like me. I ‘went grey’ when Covid hit and I didn’t get my monthly touch-ups. I still can’t get used to the grey.
It’s not just the hair color. I had my ‘colors’ done decades ago and my clothing and jewelry are based on a brunette with brown eyes. I wore bold, bright colors: reds, purples, royal blues and chocolate browns. Now many of those colors make me look like a zombie. I’ll have to switch my wardrobe to pastels which, I admit, blends better here in southwest Florida. But deep inside, I’m still a bright color gal at heart.
That’s not the only insult that stares back at me from the mirror. If I turn my head a certain way I see long, wavy hairs growing under my chin. What twist of nature gifted older women with chin hairs? And I usually don't see them because they lurk below the curve of my chin. By the time I notice them, they’ve become a crop. When I try to pluck them I can’t, because my eyesight is getting bad.
Dr. Google lists ways to remove the chin hairs “if you don’t’ want them.” What’s with the “if you don’t want them?” Who wants them? If you happen to be one of the lucky women who doesn’t get them do tell your doctor, “Doc, I’m worried that I don’t have chin hair like my friends.”
While I’m gaining hair under my chin, I’m losing it everywhere else. Pink scalp peeks out from my once thick hair. I’m missing the outer ½ of my eyebrows. At least they are still brown. The plus side is I no longer have to shave my legs every day (or at all, for that matter).
And there’s the sagging. All over. A while back I wondered what the bump above my eyebrow was. Turns out it’s the eye socket bone that my eyebrow used to cover. Now the eyebrows have sagged down a few centimeters exposing that bump.
The eyelids are sagging, too along with the cheeks and jowls and everything below them.
I sometimes wish there was a surgery where they put a screw at the top of your head and you just tightened it every couple of years to remove all the sags.
Looking on the bright side, I still have all my original, if sagging, body parts. I can still jog at a turtle’s pace, and I have all my teeth.
Maybe I’ll eventually get used to that stranger in the mirror.
How very true this all is. My sister in law once decided she was going to have surgery just under her hair line. She was going to ask the surgeon to just pull all the fat and sags up and out that incision. Needless to say, that never happened, but I sure do remember thinking she had an awesome idea!