OLDIE BUT GOODIE

For the first time in 30 years I looked in the mirror and looked OLD.

Now granted, my eyebrow dude pulled a fast one and changed his number...so after settling for the alternative threading a week and a half ago, I am looking kinda Ernie & Bert.


And true, the time of the effing month has left a scattering of unflattering breakouts across my forehead.

And there are the few errant greys.

And come to think of it, my eyes look almost as dark as the lenses on my shades.

Ok, this isnt the first time I've looked ugly ...but def the first time I bet I could buy a Molson unmolested.

Exhibit A...sexy lil laugh lines so sensitively pointed out by Brolic Boy.

Exhibit B...a box full of photos positioned right below my mirror. [Somebody found somebody else who in turn found me on Crackbook...so I pulled out the albums trying to find pics of them from back in the day.]

Instead, I found a So...Wise Yearbook of past events and candid moments.

Wise of old, if you will. Oh shit...

Remember that party at Cheetah!

Wow, it was like 15 of us crashed in my lil azz crib on the Dip.set block.

Whoa...I had forgotten all about that cat. I need to g00gle him.

Awww, my mom looks so pretty!

Look at my babies!!

Whoa, graduation seems like a lifetime ago.

What was that shirt??

DAYUM, my hair was sooooo long!
Fresh perm, too.
I LOOK SO YOUNG!

Every pic of me from high school to college to recent grad feature me in one youthful pose after another. ()I never appreciated it back then of course, but I had a hopeful glimmer in my eye and a Pantenesque sheen to my healthy hair.

*sigh*

It occurred to me that the last days of my 20s were also the last days of my hair as I knew it. It started to deteriorate as my bday approached.

I cut it off in May. Embraced the loss the same way I did the turn of the new decade.

And for the first time ever, as I rocked my lil nappy fro, I looked OLD.
(You gotta understand, the Perpetually Juvenile look runs in my family. My brothers are damn near 40 and still look like Bishop and 'nem from the movie Jui.ce, and I routinely get carded when buying my mom's K00ls 100.)

It's probably still not visible to the untrained eye...I'm sure I'd still get mistaken for an undergrad.

Until...

Saturday

Ms. Thomasine..."So what are you waiting for?"

Wise..."I dunno. I'm still trying to get used to it short. I've never not had a ponytail. And been rocking long braids since March."

MT..."You have a lot of hair. More than I did when I started. You got a cute lil pea head, too. It'll be longer than you think."

I sit up in the swivel chair. Take one last look at my old looking azz. Take a self-portrait with my phone.

Wise: "Let's do it."

The next time I faced the mirror, an hour later, I was 21 again. Fresh face, bright eyes. Pea head.

Freshly twisted hair.

10 years from now, God willing, I’ll look in the mirror and finally look 30. I’ll have photographic evidence in a box by the mirror, and a head full of locs to tell the story.