Brow

I have a gray hair in my right eyebrow, so I fully expect to wake up tomorrow 200 years old and wearing a diaper. 

This gray hair has lived rent-free in my head for days. I want to pluck it out, but all I keep thinking of is how my grandma told me that if I shave the hair off my arms, it will grow back thicker and darker. If this is true, which it must be because my grandma said it, then if I pluck my gray brow hair, I will wake up with fully gray brows and even a head full of gray hair. 

I am shocked at how vain I have become in middle age, and I have spoken to you about this before. I guess it is easy to sit on your youthful skin high horse when the reality of becoming a dehydrated raisin is so far away. My friends look so good! What if I meet up with them for homecoming or something, and people confuse me for their great-grandmother? Can you imagine a more heartbreaking situation, you know, outside of famine, abuse, and poverty?

I was on social media today and saw a picture of Charles Christmas. He has gray in his beard, and he looks so sexy. I have one gray hair in my eyebrow, and I look like Mother Earth. 

I need to allow my anxiety to settle about this before I mess around and do something nutty like shave my whole eyebrow off. At least if I have a bald brow, that may take attention away from the small frown line that I think I have coming in. 

Stages

Long ago, I was invited to Colorado to review a winter resort. A family was staying there that I became friendly with, particularly the mother. She asked me how old I was, and at the time, I was 25. She was in her 50s. She said, "You are in that stage of life where you go on Facebook and see that all your friends are getting married. I am at that stage of life where I go on Facebook and see that everyone's parents are dying."

I have thought about that statement over the years, primarily because these stages seemed so extreme. I figured that there has to be a middle stage, and there is. At 40, I am at that stage of life where messed-up, scary stuff begins to happen to you to show you that you are no longer young, and it's not fun. 

Recently, a college friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the years, breast cancer has been diagnosed younger and younger in women. I had a mentor in her 70s that told me that when she started out as a nurse, it was rare to treat a woman under 60 with breast cancer. Now my friend, whom I remember partying with and watching her cross her sorority, is now posting about her doctor's visits and their mental toll. 

I have friends who are navigating separations and divorces. Friends that are dealing with high-risk pregnancies because they are now considered "geriatric". Friends who have seriously injured themselves doing something basic, like bending over or turning their head. It's also supplement time. Don't be surprised if you go to hang out with your girls and the conversation goes rogue, and you all start talking about what vitamins you are taking for heart health and to strengthen your pelvic floor. 

A woman recently went viral for pretty much having a live panic attack because she just turned 40 and felt like she had done nothing with her life and time is running out. This comes with it to, this feeling of feeling like you have not accomplished enough. Even accomplished folks can feel this way, and it's a very haunting and panicked feeling. You start to get antsy, searching for a way to at least have some small success. It's a lot of pressure. 

Earlier this weekend, I had a Clearly Canadian water. Do you remember those flavored waters from the 90s? They are back, and it was amazingly refreshing. The last time I'd had one of these drinks, I was at the stage in my life where my biggest concern was getting my homework done so that I could watch music videos for the rest of the day. Now, when I hear songs on the radio, I don't know who half of the artists are! 

I can be negative and anxious, so for my own mental health, I am trying to brainwash myself into believing that this is the stage that great, beautiful things are going to happen to everyone I know...just a little later than expected. This stage of life can be scary, but I just know that there is some sunshine coming around that bend, and I put that on my fish oil and glucosamine. 

Homecoming Post 8: Old- Treating HER-rectile Dysfunction

I just want you to know that this homecoming I had the best intentions. I was going to go to all of the events and take lots of pictures. I was going to twerk my away across every Xavier event! Spoiler alert: that did not happen. The first event I attended was on the yard on Friday. Getting out of my Uber, I had a strong urge to climb back in and go back to the Air B and B. Listening to the loud music and seeing the students bouncing around, I felt like I needed a good two-hour nap. After that, I was supposed to go to the day party, which I was actually excited about, but that plan got derailed after I ordered myself some Copeland's for dinner and decided to catch up on Grey's Anatomy. 

"So, you don't want to go to the club?" Big Homie Sans asked that Friday, disappointed. I snickered to myself. In college, I went out every weekend and didn't really want to go then, at 18! If Uber would have been around in 2003, I would have spent exactly five minutes at every party before returning back to the dorm to enjoy a hot shower with everyone gone. Looking at the party flyers with Big Homie Sans made me yawn. I'd have to get dressed and do my hair to go to said club, get a car and go to said club, stand in line at said club, try not to collapse from exhaustion at said club. God forbid I did a line dance. I just may have gone to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, used my clutch bag as a pillow, and turned in for the night. 

Saturday night I could tell that I had gotten on Big Homie Sans's nerves. I had promised to go to the club party that night but had again gotten sidetracked by Copeland's and news clips from CBS Mornings. She was amped up on energy drinks and ready to boogie, and I was full of Oreo cheesecake and ready to count sheep. Watching her put on her eye makeup, I did feel a little sad. She was so excited to party, and I had absolutely no desire to go out at all. All I could think of was those erectile dysfunction commercials where they are like, "Is your energy down? Is it hard for you to get excited? Are you disappointing the woman in your life?" I looked up at Big Homie Sans on the edge of the bed, pouting at me. "You may have erectile dysfunction." Maybe I have HER-rectile Dysfunction or She E.D. 

Or I am old. 

You have to remember that I was the only girl in my kindergarten class that carried a purse! The only girl in middle school whose grandma set her hair with foam rollers. Now I am 38 and put going out to a club and having fun with friends in the same basket as doing Crossfit or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Maybe next year I will buy an overpriced section at the club with bottle service so I can sit and tap my toes to the music. Just don't say a word if you notice that I am wearing a floor length nightgown and watching Murder She Wrote on my phone. Real change takes time. 

The Waiting Game

My period was three weeks late. I know, T.M.I. 

And, like any woman who has had a period come late, I was majorly freaked out and panicked. Believe me when I tell you that I was mere moments away from going outside and running into traffic! In hindsight, I see that this was all part of my ever-getting-increasingly-horrible PMS, but what are you going to do?

I called any friend that would answer the phone to ask them to pray that my period would hurry up and come because not getting it on time makes me incredibly anxious and scared. And they all pretty much gave me the same response: "You aren't pregnant, so why do you care?" Um, what?! I have been getting periods every month since I was 11-years-old. Forgive me if it not coming in a month rubs me as curious on the low end and horrific on the high end. But you won't believe what I discovered in talking to my friends. I have some homies that have gone two and three months without having a period before and they were not pregnant. Is that not crazy?!

Mere hours before my period actually came, I was feeling pretty down and hopeless. "Maybe I am going into menopause," I said with a deep sigh as I talked to P on the phone. 

"It's not menopause," he said, assuredly, "but you may be on  your way there. I mean, you are almost 40."

He was not with me for me to punch him in the face, so I just screamed silently as he changed the subject about something guyish that I didn't care about. As he rambled on and on I thought about what he had said. What if he was right? He is a nurse after all. What if I was sliding on the banana peel towards middle age? I mean, is that possible? I can remember so clearly being in college and goofing off with my friends. And what about babies? True enough, I do not want kids. But for some reason it dawned on me that I did want to be married while I was still young enough to have them. I guess so that people could see that I was childless not because I am old, but by choice. Is that stupid of what?

After I got off the phone I cried and cried, mourning my lost period and my youth. Sooner than later, I imagined myself in a cold gynecologist's office, going over hormone replacement therapy and how to address vagina dryness. I though of my grandmother, who had gotten a hysterectomy. She was the picture of femininity; however, every few weeks, she would ask me to help her pluck her chin hairs. Was I going to get chin hairs? I cried myself to sleep, only to wake up an hour later to go to the bathroom and discover that Aunt Flo had arrived, unapologetically late. I sighed a sigh of relief. I was young for another month. 

The Curious Case of Holly Jillene

I feel soooo old.
These days, if I am not tucked into my bed by 10p.m., the following day is going to be a seemingly endless series of naps and irritated bickering. It's funny. My sophomore year of college my buds Rae and Aften decided to stay on Bourbon Street from p.m. to a.m. There, the clubs stay open until people stop buying drinks. By 7 a.m., I was actually falling asleep on the dance stage. If my memory serves me right, by the time we left, the buses had stopped and started running again. Today, when I go out with my girls, I am ready to leave by midnight.
This year, I turn 25, and I fear that my best years are over kiddies. These first 25 passed with the speed of light. If the next are going to go by even half as fast, hot flashes are around the corner. I have friends that have done semesters in Africa and taken impromptu trips to France. I just feel like I have not lived. These days, I spend so much time brushing up on Swine Flu facts and living in fear of catching STDs from toilet seats that I have not been getting out and living life as I should.
Perhaps that will be my New Year's resolution: to live in search of more excitement. Until then, I think I will take a nap.