The White Eyebrow Hair

I discovered a single, pure-white hair growing in my eyebrow.

Not gray. Not silver. White.

It seemed almost proud of itself-slightly longer than the others and standing at an angle that ensured I would notice it. Apparently, the hair on my head is no longer the only part of me embracing a new color palette.

I laughed.

There was a time when I might have reached immediately for the tweezers. I might have studied the rest of my face under an unforgiving magnifying mirror, searching for further evidence that time was moving forward without first asking my permission.

But today, it was funny.

Growing older has its share of indignities. Hair disappears from places where we would prefer it to remain and appears in places where it was never invited. We walk into rooms and forget why. We hold a phone in our hand while looking for the phone. We need brighter light, larger print, and sometimes a moment to remember the name of someone we have known for years.

Our bodies become a little less predictable. A good night’s sleep feels like an accomplishment worthy of celebration. And getter up from the floor can require both strategy and sound effects.

Of course, not every change is funny.

There are losses that come with age-some gradual and others sudden. There are people we miss, bodies we no longer recognize and seasons we wish we could visit again. Growing older asks us to release things we once believed would always remain.

But it gives us things, too.

It gives us perspective. IT teaches us that very little is as catastrophic as it first appears. It helps us recognize which opinions matter and which never did. It invites us to stop performing, stop apologizing, and stop waiting for permission to become ourselves.

Perhaps humor is one of the gentlest ways we can accept the passing of time.

Laughter does not deny the harder parts of aging. It simply refuses to let them have the entire story.

I am learning that I do not have to greet every new line, ache, or white eyebrow hair as an enemy. I can notice it. I can tend to it if I choose. And I can laugh at the wonderfully strange experience of inhabiting a body that continues to change while a person inside still feels remarkably like herself.

Maybe that is one of the surprises of growing older; we expect to feel transformed, but beneath all the evidence of time, we remain deeply familiar.

I am still curious. Still hopeful. Still learning. Still capable of beginning again. I simply need better lighting to do it.

So, for now, the white eyebrow hair stays.

Not because I reached some perfect state of acceptance. I have not. Tomorrow I may find it irritating and pull it out without ceremony.

But today, it made me laugh.

And I am beginning to think that growing older with grace may have less to do with pretending not to care-and more to do with holding it all a little more lightly.

The house is open. Come in and tell me: what has made you laugh about growing older?

Laughing at the surprises of growing older.