A few years ago, while I was sitting in the privacy of my own bathroom trimming my pubic hairs, I was shocked to find wiry gray wisps on just one lip.
I paused.
My mouth hung slightly open in disbelief. I searched as far as my eyes could see. When that wasn't enough, I enlisted the help of my trusty hand held mirror to look even further still. I counted...one, two, three...six...six wiry hairs! I touched them individually. They were so distinct and spry. I was in shock. Actually, shock can't quite explain my slight horror at the time. I just couldn't imagine gray hairs growing from such a vital place at such a young age. I was about thirty-two at the time and my skin was still tight and in tact. I couldn't stop looking. Every time I took a shower or used the bathroom I peeped at them. Still there. D A M N! However, like with all things, I had a mini obsession and got the phuk over it. True indeed, over time it just became another part of me and was promptly old news.
In saying that, all is good in the hood when you know and accept all things about you. You rest easy...until someone else sees your personals and then the real sideshow begins. You quickly realize that you are now the butt of jokes and a tale that a select few will tell on the way to getting their first gray pubes.
I had to ask someone reliable if this was normal. Therefore, I casually brought it up at my next book club meeting. After all, we were all women, some of which are a little older than me and I trusted them. Well, at the mere mention of the topic a few of them laughed and I in turn felt alone in the game. Shit, did I have a rare condition? I quickly realized that the laughter was more camaraderie than mocking. My insecurities play tricks on me at times, but we all have similar life problems and my girlfriends were no exception to the rules. At the very least, we all discussed it candidly. If you want to know you need only ask. You may not always get the answers that you want, but it will usually have you thinking about the issue in a whole new light and then a solution is born! I found out that most of them waxed and didn't have the trivial pursuit of searching for said hairs. Eureka!!! Why hadn't I thought of that? Waxing. That's what I'd do. A few days later I'm at home sorting laundry and watching 40 Year Old Virgin. Steve Carell was having the hair snatched out of his chest to appeal more sexy for the dating world. It looked like the most painful situation outside of childbirth, sans meds. I watched in horror. "I can't do that to myself", I thought. Nope. I'm not gonna be able to do it.
Fast forward some odd hours later, I'm in bed with my then husband (we'll call him Sir), getting ready to have sexy times and he exclaims, "Oh my God, Jas. You have gray hairs. Baby, you're getting old". I laid back with my eyes up and thoroughly out of the mood. I was in a horrible place deciding whether to remain the "Silver Fox" as Sir had now dubbed me or whether to have a hair removal technician snatch every hair out of my sensitive bikini area. I know! I'll just keep it all neat. Who cares if there are a few grays? I trimmed and did the shape up for many months. They actually looked great to me that way.
One day, I got up the courage to go wax. My birthday was coming and we were going on our regular family vacation to St. Maarten. I wanted one less thing to think about and I wanted to feel sexy about turning thirty-three. I decided to be ultra brave and booked an appointment at Uni K's on the UES at the suggestion of my girl, Shelly. They used special wax and if you told them that it was your first time, they'd be gentle. Since they were gentle, why not get my underarms, a Brazilian, my lower legs - even the little hairs on my toes done? Tall order for a beginner. I put my big girl draws on (or took them off) and prepared to be scave (for those of you who didn't read the book, ROOM, that's scared + brave). It was awful!! First thing's first...who on their first try decides to wax just about everything? Bad flipping idea. My body went into literal shock. I was sweating and I immediately got the shakes. Think a leaf on a branch in the month of November in NYC. My technician wasn't that understanding either. She found me amusing and had the giggles while she tortured me. The upside to this was that Sir loved it, I felt like I was thirteen years old again. Pretty Please (my vagina) felt like a satin princess. I remained hairless for so long I wondered if my hair would ever grow back. The downside was, I got my period on vacation, so I had to handle that very unsexy situation. Also, over the course of about a month, my hair grew in weird and sporadically. I started to shave in order for the hairs to grow in at the same time and in the same direction. After a few weeks of ingrown hairs and feeling quite itchy, I vowed to NEVER, EVER to wax again. Until I did.
Tune in later to find out what happened the second time around.