Nana Discovers Nose Hair and Other Unsightly Truths

In my thirties and early forties I remember hearing my slightly older friends complain about the aging process. I tucked that information away in the back of my brain and when I one day found myself dripping with sweat when the temperature read 60 degrees, I realized that menopause had hit with a vengeance. My girlfriends and I had laughed about all the signs of menopause: the wiry chin hairs that can’t be seen because our eyesight is failing, the memory lapses, and the mood swings. Menopause was a roller coaster, but I adjusted. I bought a large magnifying mirror with a light and was stunned to see whiskers sprouting all over my face. I got new glasses. I carried my datebook with me everywhere and most days I remembered to check it. My doctor gave me medication for the mood swings. At last I was aging gracefully.


At almost 60 I have passed through menopause. Since I retired there is less for me to remember, so I have a much smaller datebook. I quit taking the medications and now I’ll only cry once in awhile at chick flicks…or when the mother dies in Dumbo. I still have my magnifying mirror and last week I noticed something new. Oh my God…where did those nose hairs come from????

No one had told me about nose hair. I swear that the last time I noticed my nose hair it was appropriately tucked away inside my nose, almost invisible.  All of a sudden in my late 50s some long forgotten gene has switched on and told my nose hairs to turn electric black and grow toward the light at the end of the tunnel.   I subscribe to several women’s magazines and I don’t recall ever reading about grooming nose hairs. At Christmas time the ads in the newspaper fliers market nose hair trimmers as a caring gift for that special man in your life. I thought nose hairs were like prostates, solely a challenge for old men.

I just realized that it’s a good thing that very few people that I know in real life read this blog…I know if we were to meet face to face you’d be staring at my nose.  Right?   I know you would be!   Quit looking!!!  I mean it, stop it now!

Oh no! Am I going to start sprouting hairs out my ears next?