Giant eyebrow hairs and adult acne.
The signs of ageing no one tells you about.
Everyone ages — it’s a fact. No matter how much we may not want it to come or how much we may fight it, it happens to us all. Even our animals. With every passing moment our bodies are ageing.
I’m cool with this knowledge. It doesn’t mean I am ok with it. I don’t like the thought of getting old. I am already in denial at birthdays. Hoping the day slips past with minimal fuss or with as few people knowing as possible. Apart from cake. Cake is a given. The rest of the birthday can blow off into the sunset as far as I’m concerned.
But watching my body changing before my eyes (while I can still see up close…), yeah, that’s not so cool.
A few things have made me more aware of the ageing process, more so than my own mortality. Strangely my mortality doesn’t bother me so much. I’m know I’m going to die; I don’t know when, but I am not fearful. Death to me is only scary if you’re the one left behind.
Seeing how my mum had aged so much in just one year was one awakening — her face getting that ‘Yoda-esk’ hairiness, people in their 80’s seem to get. Don’t get me wrong, she hadn’t gone all werewolf just that little bit hairier where she no longer had the energy to pluck them out as there were too many and she had other things on her mind — like breathing, you know those little things.
The extra hairs — so these are expected.
I’m not yet 50 but I cannot lie. I have got the odd stray hair popping up in my chin. My husband and I affectionately call it my witch’s hair. Except these days it’s not just hair… its HAIRS! But they are still tameable. No less irritating.
But the hairs! The ones no one warned me about… the ones I expected an old man to get. You know the ones. Old men seem to get very hairy ears (I can only assume these fuzzy masses are there to sweep in sounds to the rapidly failing ears but I’m only surmising). Despite the panicky check each morning in the mirror, my ears are fuzz free thus far. Fingers crossed this is a male only phenomenon.
But the one that I did assume was a male only one is the hairy eyebrows. Those out of control, seemingly never-ending lengths of white-grey hairs moving with a life of their own, cascading down over the wrinkled eyelids of old men in wave upon hairy wave. Yeah those. Surely, we women, whose bodies go through quite enough thank you very much won’t be cursed with these hairy abominations.
I discovered to my horror it would appear not. Admittedly I am not quite at the oceans of out-of-control eyebrow but in my mind the discovery of my first filled me with enough horror that I was already captain of those hairy seas.
I remember the day clearly. Inspecting the deepening wrinkles, pulling out the stray grey hair on the head then noticing out of the corner of my eye a very distinctive white-grey eyebrow hair. This was bad enough but when the tweezers went to remove this unwelcome arrival, they revealed a much longer horror had weaved itself the full length of my eyebrow to an almost eye-watering 4cm long! Yes, I measured it. I was equally horrified and fascinated that my body could produce something like that. Since that fateful day I’ve a few more unwelcome lengthy visitors. Why didn’t anyone tell me about these?
Do people keep the weird ageing facts to themselves in a selfish, mocking way to make you experience the same self-horror they once did? I guess I will never know.
It isn’t just the giant eyebrow hairs I have started to experience. Acne. Seriously now. What’s that about?! Adult acne. No one warned me I’d basically be going through puberty all over again. Just like when you’re a teenager and about to go to your school dance a giant raised, pulsating mass rocks up smack in the middle of your forehead. Except I don’t have a school dance, I have an important work meeting to attend. And there it blows! Makeup simply makes it a faded pinkie beige pulsating mass drawing more attention to it. So, I just must embrace it and carry it with me like it’s a lonely old friend rather than a homing beacon of the unwashed.
While I’m on the topic of unwashed… another lovely or should I say smelly ageing ditty that seems to have started — smelly pits. Sorry I can’t sweeten this one up. No matter how much I wash, how much eco-friendly deodorant goes on, back it comes. Sweaty, smelly arm pits. The least cool of all the things to happen as we get older. And it can ruin your clothes.
At first, I was in denial — I assumed it was some guy next to me on the train. Eventually, I had to accept the smell was me — it’s hard to deny if its only you and the cat at home. Even if the cat is ageing too (he has grey hairs, fading hearing and arthritic hips but not smelly pits).
Just like the volcanic eruption on my forehead, the timing of the smelly pits is just as poor. Freshly showered, freshly deodorised, clean shirt, then just before you walk into a meeting — poof! Or shall I say pong.
The conversations around getting old are more frequent now, especially as my husband just turned 50 and everyone made jokes he’d start falling apart. Whenever we speak about ageing, the conversation is always around grey hair, getting glasses, getting a bit chunky around the middle or bad knees.
Never has the topic of pimples, smelly pits and out of control eyebrow hairs ever come up.
Why is that?
I’d love to know what other signs of ageing people have experienced so we can share them here. Even if we can’t do anything about them. A little heads up would be nice.
