I was reading, recently. It was a recommendation-review, with scans, of the book Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (famed beyond her comics for the "Bechdel Test": does a movie have two women in it, who have a conversation, not about men? If it does, it's worth watching!). This panel stood out, because it reminded me of something. Once you've read it, I'll tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a version of me who was smaller, younger and all-round not quite as good as the one communicating with you right now. She was between, for the purposes of this tale, between fourteen and sixteen. I can't narrow it down any further, but I know that it was after Halle Berry wore that see-through, roses-over-the-boobs dress to wherever she wore it (and a fair bit before I met my beloved) because I was travel'd to London to see a design exhibition which included it.
We stopped at a deli for lunch and I ordered a massive and delicious tuna/mayonaise/sweetcorn white-bread baguette, when ALL OF A SUDDEN--
--And I just realised that when posting both my work alongside a published illustrator's, it's not good PR to decide to go with the sketchy-sketchy took-three-seconds look.. but! It felt honest--
--Things turned to the purple ink of a teenager's memory. You see, a lady appeared.
Not so unusual, not so noticable, just some lady. Spaghetti straps with no bra, that's maybe enough to raise an eyebrow? No, here's the thing.
Do you see?
And I.. I was like so.
I look back on this day and I am fascinated by the fact that I went a decade and a half without ever honestly realising that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life regularly depilating my underarms on pain of public shame and unwomanliness. I spent the rest of the meal like so -
My head kept going round and round, round and round, "You can do that? Don't stare/I'm not! You can do that??" And I thought she looked wonderful.
It took me until I was twenty one before I felt secure in doing away with the removal of my armpit hair. In school, sixth form, college, uni, I'd hear "I haven't shaved my armpits today, I'm so gross" and see my friends (lady ones) yank their arms down SUDDENLY because they realised they had the smallest, shortest amount of stubble. Drove me nuts, I tell ya, but I couldn't break away! Too nervous. I'm twenty-three in April, and I've not worn a sleeveless shirt in four years - since I started experimenting with shaving less. I will be this summer.
The thing about this memory, my story and this post is that seeing that woman in the summer in London gave me the impetus to take an eight year journey of courage that has made me happier, more enamoured of my own appearance, and massively importantly it's made me so, SO much less ANNOYED! I hated shaving my armpits, I hated the fiddliness of it and the requirement that I felt to do it.
Let's do some maths. Let's say doing both sides together takes one minute. Let's say that I 'had' to do it three times a week to keep 'decent', because my hair grows fast. Let's say I was going to live for seventy years, post-puberty. Three times one minute per week is three. Fifty-two times three is One hundred and fifty-six. Seventy times one hundred and fifty six is 10,920, according to google calculator. 10, 920 minutes is 25.3333333 hours, again according to google calculator. And for me? That means just over one day of purest, most concentrated rage, hate and resentment that I am so glad I rejected from my life.
I want to thank that woman. And you, because if you live in a way that makes you feel right, and follow your aesthetic truths, you're telling all the kids who see you that they can do it too - no matter how long it might take them.
