November 20, 2013

The BROW Crease.

Kick, kick, kick.

Every time I lay supine the baby growing inside me would wake up. I rolled onto my side and put my hand where I imagined her feet to be. One more month and I would be holding this new little person in my arms.


First babies are game changers. There's a dawning realization that you must now care for another being completely. Eight months into my pregnancy, I looked in the mirror and I noticed something that wasn't there before.

It was...a line.


Just a tiny vertical line nestled between my eyebrows.


About 2 months after my first child was born, I suffered post-natal depression. This manifested as morbid intrusions, where I would imagine some disaster befalling us, like a bomb or a house fire, from which I'd have to save my baby. 


Those episodes were debilitating, they froze me in my tracks, kept me from sleeping, and eating...I was sick.  But my baby thrived in real life.


The line between my eyebrows deepened into a crease.


It took a few years but eventually I recovered from the post-natal depression. With each of my subsequent children, my brow crease became more visible. 


The midnight barfs, the public temper-tantrums, the watching them break-away and get on that yellow school bus without me; all this intensified the crease. 


I began to accept it as a part of my face. 



And now, at just over half a century of my life well lived, I gaze in wonder at these three opinionated and promising teenagers. 


The eldest, who once kicked me so relentlessly in utero, now blows me kisses as she leaves for University. 


The second child, who flung herself around the supermarket floor as a toddler, now dances around the kitchen singing as we cook dinner. 


The third and youngest, our son, who scared us half to death when he fell from the treehouse and fractured his skull in grade 1, now draws endless variations of Spiderman, his tongue poking out in concentration as he sketches.


Each day I pause to look at my reflection, and I know I'm aging. 


My silver streaks brushed up and away from my forehead, the lines and wrinkles sprout out of control.  


I will never again be unfettered and smooth; the bloom of youth has abandoned me. But it doesn't bother me to see it...


...because my brow crease tells everyone the story of how much I care.

And that makes me smile. My life is written all over my face.



30 comments:

  1. Gahhh!! Weeping! This is so lovely. And as a card-carrying (crease-carrying?) member of the "Line Between The Eyebrow" club, I am so grateful to have a new way of looking at it. Because seriously. I can open beer bottles with mine.

    JC, this is a beauty.

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    1. That is pretty impressive! As long as we're on the subject of party tricks, I can knock myself out with my boobs.

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  2. Oh my goodness. They don't call them worry lines for nothing, do they? I love this.

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    1. Yes. The expression "careworn" also springs to mind.

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  3. You are so wonderful, JC. This is perfect.

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  4. This is pretty perfect…made me smile :)

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  5. Yep, I've "earned" every line on my face. Love this. Thank you for making my day.

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    1. No one wants to read a book with nothing written in it, right?

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  6. This is brilliant and wonderful. The soundtrack in my brain was playing Landslide.

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  7. This was stunning, I've sent it to my sister who is struggling with worries about PND repeating 2 weeks until the birth of her second. You are an inspiration! down with botox, up with love :)

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    1. Yes, please do share it if you think it will help your sister. For it is a wider view of one facet of PND (what I was going for, anyways :D)

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    2. Hey JC, she had the baby, he is a gorgeous chilled out little chub and is perfect. She is chilled and enjoying him, coping with 2 and adjusting well. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  8. That was absolutely beautiful. What wonderful visuals and prose to take us through that journey. Just stunning. Thank you for that.

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    1. Ah Pickleope, I'm pleased you liked it. You're so very welcome.

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    1. It's been sitting on my list for a few months. Feels good to draw it out.

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  10. I love the illustrations with this story. They are simply perfect.

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  11. Sweet. A lovely ode to the beauty of the story and history behind the lines to our faces. An ode unheard by the millions who fund the cosmetic surgery industry.

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    1. I find that so sad...they're hypnotizing us into being unhappy.

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  12. This is so well written and I love the illustrations, perfect!!

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  13. That was as beautiful as Someday, which gets me every time. Such gorgeous images, simple, pure and so resonant with truth.

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    1. Thank-you for this compliment! Wow. I'm so glad it resonates with you.

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  14. Yowza. So lovely, JC. So, my 43-year-old pimples on my chin today are really just the rotting fruit falling off my worry tree. I can live with that. Besides, my facial grass will probably cover the rotting fruit as it decomposes.

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    1. Leslie! "Facial grass" made me spew my tea all over my wacom. Curses! You funny fuzzy lady.

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