Thank you...thank you very much for sharing. I know exactly what you're talking about with the hairs on the chinny chin chin :-) I too have discovered some extra company in that area. The funny thing is I found myself pulling on them just as an unconscious habit, drawing more attention than needed. I don't want to become too comfortable with them so I discovered you can wax them along with the eye brows.

I use to think the ladies at the nail shop were trying to really be my friend, when they asked "what's your name?" and I tell them, then they say "you want chin done too?" Well, I thought maybe they're trying to teach me their language or giving me an Asian name "Chin-done To" :-0 I guess that's why every time they asked my name and I said that, I received a chin waxing :-/ Just a brief observation... You know... like another finding forty type of fact.

Actually I hear it's due to the hormone changes in the body, that will sometimes cause our hair to thin on our head but start to grow on our chins and chest. It's like the body's program get confused or something; places where hair never grew before, it starts to grow and where it use to be, it just stop showing up one day; one by one moving out and relocating. I guess the chin and chest are nice retirement spots on the body. I keep my wax right on my vanity along with the rest of my "keep-it-right" youthful tools and elixirs. Wishing a hair would try to show out now.

You know it's not just women that go through these changes, men do too. Everyday I hear stories of how it was one hair then next it was ten. Different sections started slowly moving out and before they had time to really even accept the break up, it was over. I had one friend who had dreadlocks, that use to be full and beautiful. Then slowly one would fall off every now and again, but he had more so it would be okay; no one would even notice. Well around that time he was considering the comb over dreadlocks, it was that night he came to himself in a dream and said in a serious tone "one day you're going to wake up and they (the dreadlocks) will all be on that pillow, but you will not be there". He said that next morning he got up and cut them all off and let's just say it's a good thing he has a head that looks good ball. :-)


I'll finish with this...This is exactly why it's important to work on the person within because the person without is going to change and whether it's for the bad or the better, you're going to need someone to hold you up or down one day and if it's because of the person within it won't matter what the person on the outside look like; they'll have YOU no matter what.

Finding Forty Introduction

This is the story of Autumn Poet and a few friends, that will remain nameless (for now), and the neurotic, sometimes eccentric thoughts about my body’s changes and thought patterns. I just know for sure everything is changing. The challenge is…to shape my thoughts and not let my thoughts shape me.
The menagerie of events which have occurred during my life’s journey have ranged from the intrigue of mysterious happenings, “hanging on the edge of your seat” suspense, heart pounding drama to the “pissing on yourself” hysterically comical. To say the least this has been one amazing journey and I’m thankful for every bit of it. Even the stuff I didn’t think I wanted turned out to be good for me in some kind of way. So I guess that’s a part of finding forty. You realize the difference between being pruned and being stabbed. Well maybe that’s true for some of us ;-)
For instance, lately I’ve been in a war with the resistant gray hairs that refuse to take orders. Gray hairs have something that the regular hair has lost…Determination! You command it to lay down side ways and it says, “NO! I feel like standing up today”, so it does. I try plucking them out but they grow back faster and stronger, and usually with two or three more reinforcements, or is it just my hair? The changes happening all around me and too me are sometimes staggering.
Now, I’m about to cross over to the fabulous and sometimes not so fabulous forties and I find myself reminiscing and saying “Ha! I use to be….” (You know how we all have that thing we used to be or do?!) My body has come to a stage when it starts reflecting the “gain” in my life. Now when I think seriously about it, it’s been quite some time since I’ve been on the outside what I feel on the inside. In my mind, I’m 25 and have abs like Beyonce, but my body quickly reminds me differently when I try to slide into those size six hip huggers that will only come to my knees, or when the “muffin top” spills over the edge of my bikini underwear while screaming “I wish you would, and I’ll jump right out like a frog in hot water!!!” By now, I’ve been strapped down, taped up, Saran wrapped, tucked in and folded under and laid to the side and still got jelly rolls on my back. Now how did I do that? It’s all so amazing. Now I’m really not that bad but I could be so much better, if I just got up off my ass and did it (and by that, I mean EXERCISE!) Reality checks, at this stage, are brutal but necessary.
So I try to convince myself to do this longer than for a week or two but do this thing for real like I mean it. While yet I have the breath to breathe let me, while yet I have a step to take, let me take it and make it count. I’m feeling like, “Okay if I going to make something happen then this will be it. This is the time to do it and stop talking about it. I’ve been talking long enough!” (Another finding forty thing: I give myself a lot of pep talks, but am I listening? This is my reasoning for sharing out loud so that someone else may decide to hold me accountable for what I’ve said and that would be so great!)

The Realist

If the tears that I cried were good for my skin....

I would never grow old.

If the pains in my heart were good for my health....

I would never die.

If this discontent was really peace, I would smile all the time

but I'm a realist today so I must tell it like it 'tis,

My face is tight from all these tears I've cried, My heart is aching so, I feel I'm going to die.

This discontent is eating me alive, so it's impossible to smile but steadily I try...

I'm a realist today; so I must tell you like it 'tis