The Girl With No Eyebrows

I have never really had eyebrows. This picture of me at a young age is cute for sure. But where are the eyebrows? Also, the photographic studios painted my eyes blue and I grew up thinking my eyes were blue. It was not until I went to a color consultant in California in the 1970s that I even realized I had green eyes and that I am a "spring". That color consultant has shaped what colors and patterns I wear for 40  plus years, but no one, no one, has really helped me with my eyebrows. Oh I have heard to not use pencil--use powder so it will look more natural. NATURAL! EEK! By the end of the day NO EYEBROWS! NADA! I am self-conscious about those eyebrows!

Eyebrows. Why am I writing about this on a blog about caregiving? Yes, for sure I do write about the my dear husband's dementia and how well he is doing after almost five years with the disease. But I also write here about the process of aging, downsizing with the book The House That Cleans Itself, and really what can be done to simplify life in the senior years. I cannot turn back the hands of time, but maybe, just maybe, I can be more sympathetic with the aging me I see in the mirror. Maybe I can take less time on makeup and look pretty as well. Maybe this will happen when I

Have my eyebrows done

with permanent makeup!

Years ago when I taught fifth grade in California one girl came up to me and asked me how old I was when I got my ears pierced, hoping I would say "ten" and she could press her case with her mom. My answer of  "twenty-three" disappointed her. I was always sensible for years and years and years. I was always cautious in dating and only married for the first time at age forty, became a widow and then eight years later married my current husband, an attentive and Christian gentleman. But now--

HAS THE OLD LADY
GONE OFF HER ROCKER!

Good gracious gravy! I think I am so vain and silly about this. But you have to understand, folks. If I were to use tweezers I couldn't find the blond hair to pluck out to shape those eyebrows. Eyebrow powder does fall off by the end of the day. At times I get these eyebrows waxed, but why even do that! The powder will just fall off!

The driver's license I have been stuck

with for five years has no eyebrows!

I have looked so old lately with bags under the eyes because of no thyroid pills for five weeks. Horrible. Doesn't this picture gross you all out. I almost wasn't going to put it here.


Before eyes

 I started thinking about what if I had to go to the hospital again. Or, what if people looked at the above eyebrows in a casket. Would the mortician know how to fix my eyebrows so people would recognize me and say she looks peaceful? How can I grow old gracefully?

Better after consultation
and taking thyroid pills again



Lakeland, Florida Salon

Hubby went with me to the eyebrow consultation on my birthday last week. We both liked how my eyebrows looked as Betty drew color on manually and decided the exact color and shape. All day long those eyebrows looked good and so did my eyebrows on my birthday picture with my husband taken at Grillsmith restaurant that night. Those eyebrows are going to camouflage a lot of aging and they move with my expressions. People will see eyebrows and green eyes and be distracted by the aging me. My eyes will speak, at least this is my plan.

The day after my birthday I went to my doctor and everything checks out fine. She didn't seem concerned about the 40 day wait for my thyroid biopsy. She didn't seem concerned about my eyebrows getting permanent color. I will just have to be careful to not let my forehead get an infection, she said. No sweating and no yard work for three weeks. Be careful when I wash my hair, etc.

Betty's magic is actually permanent makeup with 100% vegetable dye. It was wonderful to be pampered and really was not painful. I had asked my hairdresser Anne what I will look like if I were to go to Toastmasters tonight and she had replied: You might look a little swollen and they will be darker than you'll want, but after they heal they lighten. You may look a little strange, but you can pull it off.

A little strange at Toastmasters? I can handle that?

Yes, I thought, the lady who told her Toastmasters club about the messes in her home with illustrated pictures can handle an eyebrow transition and looking a little strange.

Before Toastmasters tonight Hubby and I went to Texas Roadhouse in Lakeland for dinner.*  When we left the restaurant, it was raining and I wasn't supposed to get my eyebrows wet! On the way to Toastmasters my forehead itched and I scratched!  But Betty had given me antibiotic ointment to put on my eyebrows tonight and I am not expecting a problem.

The theme at Toastmasters for the evening was "summer adventure". I took that summer adventure to Toastmasters! Really people didn't notice my eyebrows. Silly me! At least I don't have to work in the yard for three weeks because sweat would not help the healing and I might get an infection. Eccentric! That's what you call us old gals.  I now qualify as the old biddy with painted eyebrows! Bring on that Red Hat Society.

I do thank the LORD for a loving husband who put up with this fetish of mine and who is still able to do things with me. Next project? Work at not being so self-conscious about myself and deal with aging.

* See our pictures at Texas Roadhouse on this blog's Facebook page.