unibrow

Every girl waits in great anticipation for her physical beauty to emerge; those womanly curves, the alluring walk, the face that will one day capture a man’s heart in true love… For a ten-year-old it seems the process will take way too long, she wants to be beautiful now. The biggest obstacle to my emerging beauty at that age was my unibrow. I inherited it from my Dad and it was a great embarrassment to me. My mother assured me that she would teach me how to tweeze and shape my brows, when I was old enough… Now what child likes to hear those words, I ask you?

One Saturday evening I was asked to sit at the neighbor’s apartment upstairs and just keep an eye on their sleeping baby while they went out for awhile. I took a good book and settled in for a quiet evening. As I read, I started playing with my brows and started pulling out a few hairs. It didn’t take much effort, I pulled out more… and more. I read and pulled all evening, probably a good two hours or so, getting pretty excited thinking how gorgeous I was becoming. When the neighbors came home, their cautious stares at my face told me that they noticed my new-found beauty, too. I could hardly wait for the next morning to see my grown-up look. It was late, so when I went home I slipped into bed quietly in the dark.

Sunday morning my brother was the first to notice and exclaimed “What happened to you?” Boys, especially little brothers, just don’t understand the ways of women. I checked myself out in the mirror. Horror of horrors, what had I done? Instead of beautiful, feminine, alluring brows, the unibrow was still there only now with a huge gap over each eye! I wasn’t one step closer to womanliness, I was a freak!

My brothers were free with their chides, but Mother was compassionate. She didn’t make me go to church that morning, and until it grew back she filled it in with an eyebrow pencil for me every morning. The unibrow wasn’t as bad after that, I had learned that it could be worse. I reluctantly realized some things would just have to wait. My tweezers became my welcome friend when I was twelve, along with the most crucial companion tool, a mirror…