Wooly Worms

I had a crazy idea. After plucking and waxing my eyebrows for a few decades, I planned to grow them back and reshape them, maybe a bit more naturally. The growing season began. I did nothing whatsoever to address my eyebrows. I figured if I saw something I didn’t like along the way, I’d quit the journey. So I just didn’t look.

After three months I looked in a mirror to survey the landscape. Not just any mirror, mind you, but a 10x magnifying mirror. I anticipated seeing my eyebrows returning to their former glory.

I had four eyebrows now. A definitive separation between the existing eyebrows and the new growth gave me the appearance that I was a unique being from another planet. Clearly, one where four eyebrows was dope. One with goats. It looked like these goats had been randomly grazing above my eyes.

Among other wild spots, there were hairs growing on my eye lid. Yes, my EYE LID. I tried to pluck those ones because I certainly didn’t want hairy eyeballs at the end of this venture. Even with a 10x magnification mirror, I repeatedly missed grasping the strays with the tweezers, and would mistakenly grab the delicate, sensitive, eyelid tissue. I was most definitely out of practice with my tweezers, because after a few minutes, I had bloody eye lids from all of the misses, but I had conquered. There were no more hairs waving in the wind from my eye lids.

Four eyebrows and bloody eye lids. This was awesome.

I said bye-bye to the 10x mirror for another three months. I researched eyebrow growth cycles. Eyebrows can grow back pretty normally, in most cases. I would stick it out, stay the course, and see my eyebrows restored to the natural way God made them.

At the six-month mark I analyzed my personal project of patience and persistence.

My God, why have you forsaken me?

I still had four eyebrows, but they were more like wooly worms on the top row, with a smattering of hairs below the DEFINITIVE LINE OF SEPARATION, and a few clumps of hairs above the arches. I would not give up. I groomed my brows with an eyebrow brush, filled them in with eyebrow pencil, carefully making little wisps for a natural look. I would make this work.

When I was satisfied with my handiwork, I stepped back to assess the new look. My face had two wooly worms that looked ready to mate. God, help me.

After washing away the disaster I so carefully drew on my face, I plucked. And I plucked. And I plucked some more. I missed a lot. Back to my thin eyebrows, with newly acquired bloody spots that would need to heal for the next two weeks.

I trust God to work all things for good, and evidently, His plan was not for wooly worms to transform my face.

Amen.