We Don’t Torture!
I did two things this weekend that would, at first blush, seem totally unconnected but weren’t. First, I watched a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime (and can’t help secretly giggling over the fact that Gary, who caught parts of it while passing through the kitchen, wanted to know “So, what finally happened?” But I digress.). The movie was about a teenage girl who was being emotionally tortured by her supposed best friend and a bunch of junior witches. Who hasn’t been there? (Well, maybe not some of the girls I went to high school with. . . )
The second thing I did was tweeze my eyebrows.
So, you ask, how can these two disparate things be anyway connected? Stay with me, here. When you’re in high school, you are really, really at the mercy of other girls, much more than boys, right? If they start laughing at you behind your back or spreading rumors about you (both of which happened to poor ‘Nessa in the movie), your life can be horrible. What is more devastating to a teenage girl than being outside the “crowd”?
Been there. But when Gary asked if I’d ever gone through something like Vanessa did – like when her so-called best friend totally dissed her by inviting her to a huge birthday party. . . a week before it actually was! – I told him about how Sue L. gave me “the finger” from the back seat of the school bus.
I know. Doesn’t sound that bad, but it was, to me. I didn’t even know the girl. And she was one of the “hoody” tough girls. And a sophomore. And had a crowd of hoody, tough girlfriends. Gulp. And it didn’t stop with the “finger.” I heard rumors she was going to beat me up. She tried to terrorize me whenever she could, and her friends backed her up. (My belated thanks to Carole Normile for refusing to go along with her.) So, what did I do?
I pretended I didn’t care. I acted like she and her friends were so inconsequential. And it all went away. (If you’re reading this now, Sue, shame on you!)
Okay. I’m getting to the connection between this and my eyebrows. When I washed my face this morning, I noticed a few stray hairs and took out the tweezers, looking in the mirror over the sink and thinking, “Gee, I really can’t see all the stray hairs this way. I should get out my magnifying mirror.”
Then it hit me. Why should I? If I couldn’t even see these stray hairs without a magnifying glass, who else could? Why should I obsess over these invisible hairs, striving for perfection? Who would know?
Like who would know that Sue L’s nasty attitude made me feel downright miserable, unless I let them?
So, here is what I learned today. If I can’t see it, no one else can. And if I don’t tell people something bothers me, they won’t see that either. And the moral of the story?
Who said there was a moral? I just said they were connected, not that it made any sense. But it made you think, didn’t it?
Postscript 2/4/2011: I recently saw Susan L. who was totally shocked – she has no recollection of this harassment. She was profuse in her apologies – and all is forgiven!
Tags: emotional, emotional torture, eyebrows, friends, high school, perfection, teenage girls, torture, tweeze
Sorry to tell you this…but people with better than 40 something vision can see the stray brow hairs…trust me, my 20 something daughter saw them (when I did them myself..wax or stringing is the only way to go now)and would get the tweezers after me!
In response to being tormented as a child – did that being back bad memories!! Sadly, most of us go through it. And for those of us who did, we can tell our kids not to get involved with things like that because we know the hurt it can inflict. ANd, if our kids do encounter the “bullies” we can reassure them they’re not the first and won’t be the last. However you look at it, it’s hard to go through it and it’s tough to watch our kids go through it. BUT, it could be worse. Last night on CNN, there were two disturbing stories about this subject. One was a 15 year old girl who confessed to killing a nine year old girl and the other was about 14 middle school boys who beat up another boy because he had red hair and freckles and somewhere on “Facebook” it was “Ginger Day” meaning (red-headed kids) and based on a Southpark episode “Gingers” are worthless. Nice????? I do believe parents need to be more responsible at teaching our kids about right and wrong and learning to be empathetic.
Now..about eyebrow hair….waxing is the way to go.