Somewhere, lost in the middle of the nineties – there I was. Brimming with confidence on the outside, dying with self doubt on the inside. I can never remember exactly which year anything happened when I think back to those days. I imagine it’s probably because I don’t really want to remember the exact details. I’m glad it’s behind me, it’s over.
Somewhere in amongst it, I was asked if I wanted to be in a hair show. And just to make sure I’m painting the right picture, it wasn’t the type of hair show that involved photographers, stage lights and champagne. It was the type of hair show that involved the local pub, a complimentary Bacardi Breezer and a night with a group of hairdressers talking about colour codes and updo’s.
I must have been about twenty four.
Part of the deal involved having a make-up artist complete our “look”. I can’t remember any details about her face or voice, where she came from or who she worked for, but I can remember one particular thing she said.
“Your eyebrows are driving me nuts! There’s really nothing I can do with them”.
I’d never given my eyebrows a second thought. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t get them into an arch, they’re kind of flat, almost straight. It’s just the way they are. Some people just can’t have an arch in their eyebrow”.
“Oh – I’m sorry – okay” I stumbled. Apologizing for my disappointing eyebrows, because that’s what I said to anyone I found vaguely intimidating in my twenties.
I don’t miss my twenties.
If I didn’t get the job I really wanted, I almost apologized for applying “Oh – I’m sorry – okay”.
If the particularly attractive salesperson of the incredibly groovy store didn’t have my size, I apologized for being there “Oh – I’m sorry – okay”
It wasn’t that I was a wallflower – I was far from it. I was the girl slamming the tequila, making the phone calls and organizing the party.
I just didn’t want you to look me in the eye and ask me who I was, because I didn’t like the answer. In my mind, I had faults that went way beyond my eyebrows. The unfinished university degree, the boyfriend who found someone better and the unpaid bills, were regular guests at my table of self loathing. I kept setting that table and serving myself up another plate.
I don’t miss my twenties.
And then finally, I stopped. I started to see myself a little differently.
I realized I had a good job, great friends, I liked where I lived and life was pretty good. I was 28 and finally I wasn’t apologizing anymore.
Two weeks ago I had an appointment in London, G and the travelers went off to the park and I found myself suddenly childless with an hour to kill. I love the way big cities can swallow you whole while charging you with their energy. There’s no choice about the speed in which you walk, the sensory overload makes your fingers tingle and your hair stand on end. I ducked into a side street in Soho and saw a benefit store and knew it was my time to do the whole “benefit brow” thing. When they told me they’d just had a cancellation, I saw it as fate. No children, an hour to kill – do it now!
“You’ve got great eyebrows” said my new best friend from benefit.
“No, I’ve get terrible eyebrows – someone told me that years ago”
“What are you on about? Whoever told you that was a right plonker” she said with her gorgeous Londoner accent.
“Have a look at em!” she flashed the mirror in my direction.
And there it was. My arch. It had been there all the time.
I just wasn’t ready, or perhaps able to see it.
Do you have a stage of your life that you’re happy to forget?
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Interesting post. Yes there’s one particular stage of my life I’m happy to forget. My years at secondary school. I was sent to boarding school, I was young and naive and couldn’t stand up for myself. Although I did have some good times, most of my memories are of the bad times.
I wrote a post about some of my experiences.
http://www.21stcenturymummy.com/2010/02/12/does-boarding-school-scar-children-for-life/
I think my worst years were my 20’s even though I thought I was having a ball at the time. At university I was active in a lot of things, although studying a degree that I hated, but all I remember now is anxiety. My dad and grandparents all died in my 2nd year so that was probably the reason. I left uni without a job, which didn’t really bother me, but was not the norm as every single one of my friends had a great job in London lined up.
And although I did get a good job or two in London and had an excellent groups of friends and a great social life, again, it was all unrequited crushes and shitty guys. Until I got married at 28, that is!
“I think my worst years were my 20’s even though I thought I was having a ball” – snap! The anxiety, the shitty guys. Ugh. It was fun but it was huge learning experience. Now my 30’s, that’s a whole different story. Loved your comment. xx
ditto to Expat Mum!! my 20’s were a shocker ! I managed to be in some unhealthy relationships overseas and once I came home things settled a bit but took until my late late 30’s to sort myself out 🙂
I think the period between finishing high school and attempting three different university degrees (not simultaneously – just trying to find one that “fit” lol) would be the one I was most glad to leave behind. Packing up and following my boyfriend to the country at not quite 20 lead me to a job I would never have considered back home and provided me with great grounding for my future jobs.
And while the rest of my 20’s were fine I do love the confidence and don’t-give-a-crap-what-anyone-thinks attitude I’ve got now @ 31…although I do wonder if that’s more to do with becoming a mum at 29 and just not having the energy to give a crap anymore 🙂
I have my “lost years”, which span the first two years out of high school. I drank ridiculous amounts, missed a ridiculous amount of uni and lived entirely for me and without much thought for others. I cringe when I think of that time. I really didn’t like myself or treat myself very well and that was reflected in how I treated others.
From a fellow KJ initialed person, this comment could have been written for me. Unfortunately 20+ years later I’m still trying to be kinder to myself.
I must find a brow bar. I’m sure my arch is there all along as well 🙂
Your arch is making me cry. Was there all along … like Dorothy’s ability to home, goddamnit XXX
Absolutely. My entire childhood. Most of my 20s and all of my 30s.
It was there all along… loved reading this.
Oh I love that it was there all along! I have quite a few years I’d like to forgot, but mostly I wish that when I suffered so many insecurities about myself and my body in my late teens/early adulthood I had realised I was actually pretty hot, smart and quite a catch. Might have treated myself better then, and also kicked a few men to the kerb.
Gorgeous post. I hated myself in my twenties, and I hate even looking back to that person. I don’t recognise myself at all. I wish I could do them over. But given that I can’t, I just try to be the very best Kerri At 43 that I can be. It’s all I can do!
I feel EXACTLY the same.
That person who did your eyebrows in the 80s really was an idiot. Eyebrows like yours were the HOTTEST thing in the 80s. Google Brooke Shields, Helena Christensen or Linda Evangelista for their photos from then. Straith and then down at the end. I know because I have them too, though it didn’t change my confidence level to know it. I think 28 is the turning point for many. It was for me too.
This post has made me think. It really has. Thank you 🙂
Love & stuff
Mrs M
By my 20’s I had come to start overcoming the pitfalls of my teens. When I was in junior high school and most of high school I was very shy and didn’t have much self confidence. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school (I was 17) that I made a conscious effort to overcome that shyness. I actually went a bit overboard, but once I learned to center myself I gained the confidence that I lacked. Even now, at close to 60 years old, I am still shy, but have learned not to let it control me.
Ironically, just over a month ago I reconnected with a gal I hadn’t seen since high school who informed me that I actually was pretty popular though I obviously was totally unable to be aware of it. My lack of self-confidence stood in my way.
Seems to be a common thread in all the responses. Insecurity, anxiety. However, I’m envious of those who worked it out in their late 20s/30s. Took me ’til my mid-40s, and I’m still not sure, and I’m quite a bit older than that.
Great post. Thanks.
I got goosebumps reading your post. I reckon I’ve only even vaguely got it together in the last 5 years…I still don’t have the life I thought I would & am wracked with doubt more than occasionally but like you, I don’t apologise for it anymore. I spent my 20s apologising for everything. Sometime I think I would love achore cruisy life but hey, I’m not really a cruisy person so the shoe fits. I love that your view of your brows has changed after years of thinking otherwise.
My high school years – not one of those people ever got me. Not one. People think its strange I have no friends from my high school. Not me. Mum knew – she kept telling me to go – go travelling. I was in my early 20’s, I found people who loved me for me. I married one of them and are catching up with all the others on the weekend in a different country to where we found each other. 12 years later. Life is good.
I live my life as I know myself now. My teens were a struggle. I was told I had nice eyebrows in my teens., But, my nose and lips apparently too big.
Go figure.
I loved this post.
Aw, I’m a little bit teary reading this one!
My teens. Very shy, very very anxious about ‘fitting in’, very unstylish and so utterly fixated on my own worries that it wasn’t until I was in my final year that I realised that being myself was the best fit.
As for eyebrows – I NEVER get asked (past or present) to get my too-thin hair done or my brows plucked as they’re blonde and invisible!
I love your words and your stories Kirsty. really.
My twenties – my early twenties – were a contradiction. I look back and alternately cringe at the loneliness I felt, and I also look back and recall the era, and how very happy I was for such a lot of the time. But I never realised how happy I was because I focused on the lonely. (I had four partners in that decade. They all joined up together. Despite the love and lust for the first three, they made me feel very lonely. How does that work?)
Anyway, I cannot wait to hold your gorgeous face next time I see you to look upon your eyebrows.
xxx
New here and this is such a great post.
I think it’s really only since I turned 30 that I’ve really felt comfortable with who I am and where I am in life. Happy to just be me.
As for my eyebrows, I have never touched them, too scared of starting something and not being able to stop!
Gosh I can relate to that incessant apologizing – I’m so glad to leave my 20’s behind. Great post x
Oh God, Kirsty, this post really relates to me. Wow. In my 20’s I used to worry all the time about what people might think about me or my choices. I never felt strong or confident enough to really *own* my own life, like the way I thought THEY did.
I also put up with a whole lot of shit that I shouldn’t have – and weathered some big life-changing moments. Man, that stuff seems so long ago!
Now, at the age of 46, I look back and see how young and naive I really was. Turning 40 was a revelation – I am so much more comfortable now than I was back then… but I think that’s the way life’s supposed to be. Aging is something to be embraced, not avoided. It just takes some of us a few decades to work that one out!
Great post, hon xx
My twenties were also a nightmare I have no desire to revisit. Every year when my birthday came around, I would wonder, “Maybe this will be the year it all begins to make sense.”
After growing up with a violent father and being made homeless at 17 by my mother, I suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. Anorexic, spiralling into depression and sorely lacking in self worth I struggled and failed to put myself through Uni, dropping out after 2 years. I followed my boyfriend to a new location and after working as a civil servant for a year I was gently taken aside and told I wasn’t coping. I was signed off work and left to fester at home where I became agrophobic and began habitually self-harming while doctors tried various drugs on me.
Throughout those years I allowed people to mistreat me because I though that was all I deserved. If it hadn’t been for meeting my husband at 27, and his support and belief in me, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, I wouldn’t have made it to today.
My biggest regret is all those wasted years – I can never get them back again. But I did learn that you never know what’s in store for you, even when it all seems hopeless, hope might be lurking, smirking, just around the corner.
Ah love, the mystery that is sweet Fate and an hour of freedom and lessons for the heart–magic. Life beautifully layered. I do indeed regret much of my 20’s, the choices that live there. However, now creeping closer to 40, why does it seem that many friends are struggling to find center again? The 30’s are so full of babies and laughter and acceptance of the clutter and dash that is parenting. As it thins, gets neater and less demanding….there is floundering. *sigh* Perhaps this is another round of “find yourself?” Dear Lord, the first was hard enough.
Great post Kirsty, I loved it, really made me think.
Is there a stage in my life I’d rather forget? Too many to list, but I loved being seventeen. The spots had dried up, so had school and I thought the world was waiting just for me. Thirty years later I’m an expat living in the Nederlands with my very own Mr Sunshine, berating myself for letting the world and life wash over me, while I was busy worrying about being late. Never realising it wasn’t appointments or work I was late for but my own life.
I worked in a professional job through my 20’s 20 days off a year) while my friends went to uni or had casual work- but they all partied or travelled. Always taking orders, being told how to do things or made to constantly feel the need to up my game never really gave me a chance to find my inner conviction then either. At least hairy eyebrows were IN! Great post.