Ladies, I’m in menopause and having a midlife love affair…with my tweezers.
I can’t imagine going a day without them. Without holding them in my hand. Without being so grateful we know each other so intimately.
My tweezers know my deepest, darkest secrets.
We’re all quite aware of many of the physical changes that go along with midlife and menopause.
For me (and I hope to hear from some of you too), one of the more annoying things is the whole facial hair thing.
Seriously.
It’s getting worse.
But sometimes I can’t really SEE the whole picture because my reading glasses are misplaced.
The fine but plentiful peach fuzz hair blanketing my face is one thing. I had that threaded once and thought I was gonna die.
So.
Painful.
But the real annoying facial hair I’m talking about is more the black whisker variety.
Give me a break.
It’s bad enough that they are multiplying.
But the fact that they are multiplying when I need reading glasses just adds insult to injury.
The whiskers have a much better chance of being seen by others now that I have even more trouble finding them myself.
I don’t even have daughters to help me out. At least a daughter would let me know when one of these suckers got out of control.
No…I have three sons.
They wouldn’t even notice a stray hair, let alone share the information with me.
Unless, of course, the whisker was particularly funny. Like coming out of the top of my nose. Then I would hear about it.
Come to think of it, every once and awhile I do find an particularly long hair popping out of the middle of my forehead. But it’s quite fine. Not a big, black whisker. They wouldn’t notice it.
There’s a bright side to whiskers in menopause though.
One thing that makes them a bit easier to find is how coarse they are. I can feel them.
Lovely.
Just what I always wanted.
Masculine whiskers.
I can feel prickly…just like my mood.
This brings me to talk a bit more about the most favorite tool in my cosmetic bag.
I really couldn’t live without this special piece of metal.
If I were to go on the TV show Survivor, they would definitely be my ONE LUXURY ITEM.
They are my tweezers.
I just love them to pieces.
I remember when my mom gave me my first pair. I was 13 years old and we were on a big vacation to San Francisco. I don’t know why, but she told me my eyebrows were to bushy and that I needed to tweeze.
My love affair with tweezers started at that moment.
It also opened the door to my hideous, almost non-existent eyebrows of Grade 8.
As you may know, once armed with an amazing pair of tweezers, it can be difficult to exercise self-restraint.
Tweezing is one of those activities that’s somehow annoying and relaxing at the same time.
Notice my language. I didn’t say “plucking.”
I’ve been corrected. Plucking is for feathers. Tweezing is for hairs.
I remember one particularly funny episode of Rosie O’Donnell’s show in the 90s. She noticed a long whisker under her chin and decided to put a bead on it. I remember watching this in disbelief as the camera zoomed in on the ultimate close-up shot of her beaded whisker swaying back and forth.
I was always so embarrassed by my facial hair, but there Rosie was, flaunting and decorating hers with pride.
While we’re on the topic of tweezing, I feel compelled to also note here that there’s one dynamic duo that is absolute tops.
The best.
Nirvana.
I’m talking about the wonderful combination of the magnification mirror and tweezers.
An absolute must for us reading glass wearing midlife gals.
My perfect scenario is 15 minutes uninterrupted morning bathroom time that includes a cup of coffee, great lighting, and satellite radio streaming on my iPad.
Ah yes…the simple pleasures in life.
And now…the scary calculation of time spent tweezing…
I would say that I spend about 15 minutes every time I sit down to tweeze. I get lost in it. I would also say that I tweeze every day to every other day. So let’s just go with three times per week.
According to my calculation, that means I spend about…drum roll please… 39 hours a year on this activity.
Shut the front door! It gets worse.
I’ve been tweezing for decades. At 53 years young, I would say that I’ve been tweezing for about 65 days! That’s over 9 weeks of my life spent staring at myself looking at and for black hairs on my face.
This has got to stop. What a waste of time, right?
It’s odd how the EXPERIENCE has become pleasurable, because the NEED TO TWEEZE isn’t pleasant at all.
This is the other thing…I feel horrible about having whiskers.
The problem feels insurmountable.
I’ve tried so many treatments and potions to get rid of the problem.
But the problem persists. And it seems like a cruel joke that the whiskers are getting worse in direct correlation with my ability to see them.
For those of you who remember reading my blog about ditching bad underwear, you may see a pattern here.
Sometimes we just don’t notice how bad certain everyday things make us feel.
Just like old worn-out undies can make you feel bad, so can unwanted facial hair.
It begs the question, why don’t I just get to the bottom of this issue once and for all?
The answer can be found somewhere in my thinking. Whenever you have a result in your life that doesn’t make you happy, all you have to do is to take a close look at your thoughts.
So what am I thinking that’s creating my result of having whiskers on my chinny chin chin?
The answer, my friends, is that I’m thinking something that makes me feel hopeless and overwhelmed. My thoughts create my feelings.
My thought is: I just don’t know what to do.
There it is. A pretty indulgent thought too. “I don’t know” can be a dream squisher. So instead of figuring out how to solve this problem, which is not rocket science, I choose to think a thought that makes me feel hopeless and results in hours and hours of tweezing a year.
What thought would be better for me?
Something that made me feel hopeful that I can solve my facial hair problem. Something like, “I’m learning what treatment option works best for me.” That thought makes me feel motivated about figuring the whole thing out.
There you go.
Hope you found this helpful. It’s not the whiskers that made me feel bad; rather, it’s my thoughts about the whiskers that cause cause the problem.
Mindfulness can work wonders in all kinds of situations!
For more information about how more mindfulness can work in your life, hop on a call with me. I offer a free 20 minute insight session and would love to talk to you!
