Chin Hair

Chin Hair

The idea came to me at my husband's aunt's wake.  She was 101 and lying in repose in a beautiful coffin with her hands folded across her chest caressing her rosary beads.  My girlfriend and I approached the casket to pay our last respects.  The room was rather empty.  At 101 there aren't too many people remembering you.  And it was quiet for that same reason.  We stood over her.  We were standing together and I carefully leaned a bit closer to my girlfriend as we were somberly looking at Aunt Mil and I whispered:

"Here's the promise:  if I go first, you'll take care of it.  If you go first, it will be my responsibility.  Deal?  Deal!"

We were holding hands and accepted that as our handshake cementing our pact and tiptoed away.

The deal?  Chin hair!  Make it gone.  No matter what.  If you have to bring a razor with you to my coffin - so be it - but promise me I will not leave this world with a last wily and wiry chin hair screaming for attention.

Why is it that when we get older we get hairier in the worst places?  This of course as we are losing hair in the best places.  My husband has a soft circular almost nebula shaped thinning at the back of his head.  But he suddenly has nose hairs sprouting like spring grass.  I have chin hairs and God how did that happen where singular long hairs spring one at a time from my chin and sometimes my neck - daily?  And they just appear - fully grown and dark, thick and ready for battle.  Why didn't I see it before?  Was it ever a little baby hair that started to appear?  That doesn't seem to happen.  They are just there - fully matured so to speak.

I tweeze my eyebrows daily.  I shave my legs when I have to (yes, much more often when I was younger - now it depends upon what I'm wearing).  I even shave my arms (started that in my teens and once you start you can never go back).  My mustache?  Yup I shave that but that's easy.   All just part of my daily routine.  But these other random chin and neck hairs are persistent and ornery and insistent and a new surprise about aging I just was not prepared for.

I can live with gray hair on my head.  Rather like it truthfully.  It is much more acceptable these days if not actually a style to aspire to.  Its been years since I've had my hair tinted or dyed or anything and I love it.  Saves me money, saves me time and for some reason it gives the impression of my (real or hoped for) inherent comfort with my maturity.  Ah, but the wily chin and neck hairs are not gray.  They are not soft.  They are usually black or at least the darkest brown and just THERE and not just there but standing at attention.  They are screaming for attention.

Is there some understandable physiological, scientifically explainable reason for them?  I have to think there is especially as they are only appearing in this number now.  Humans are hairy beings and the hair we have is generally  for protection.  Hair keeps you warm, helps keeps germs and bacteria and bay, assists with protecting all sorts of areas from insects and the like, protects you from the sun..  Will someday it be found that they might portend some illness or age related ailment?  I could accept the logic of these annoying me with their surprise appearances if they had a reason.  Like, hmmmm, black hair on the chin every three to four days is an indicator of osteopenia.  Or, perhaps, dark brown hair at the front of the neck might warrant blood tests for cholesterol.  Of course if this were true, attending to these newly realized issues would then eliminate the hairs upon remedying the physical or medical situation.  That at least would some sense.

But to prepare oneself each day with one's "toilette" and with time accept the aging one sees:  jowls, sagging, age spots, creepy eyelids, graying eyebrows for God's sake.  That is all, well, it has to be manageable and we've all been forewarned by our elders in person and in the media what the future holds for us as we get older.  I've survived the hot flashes.  Im living with the creaky knees.  I can take care of my ever so less tolerant stomach.  But... a hair here or there jutting out from my neck as I am starting my day or a hair waving hello from my chin?  Nope!