Little Wife and Her Eyebrows

My friend, Little Wife, was over for a spot of tea the other morning. Knowing that she has very profound insight on so many topics, I asked her this question: “Should everything be done in moderation?” And of course, she told me a story from her life as an answer to my question. I will pass it on to you right here, right now.

When she was in college, Little Wife was not yet a wife. Still she often felt that life was out of her control. She attended classes, studied hard, got really good grades, worked at the newspaper office and dated frequently. However, she did these things because it was the right thing to do. Little Wife has always been a “crowd pleaser” — not wanting to rock the boat or conflict anyone anywhere anytime. Most of the decisions in her life were expected ones; her parents, professors and friends all expected her to be a certain way. This was smothering Little Wife so she acted on something that she alone could control — her eyebrows.

One morning before class she looked into her lighted mirror. Her makeup looked nice — not too much, just a little smudge of blue eye shadow and just one brush of brown mascara. Slightly pinked cheeks and lips to match (because she used lipstick for both). “Lookin’ good, honey!” she whispered to herself. She flipped the mirror around to high magnification for a second glance. And then it happened! Her eyebrows exploded off the mirror into a shocking 3D image making Little Wife gasp in horror — she had a small chipmunk tail growing across her forehead! How had she not noticed it before? When had it grown there? And why had no one told her that her eyebrows were as bushy as a chipmunk’s tail?

The tears welled up in Little Wife’s eyes as she realized that her face was suddenly such a mess that she couldn’t go to class or to work. Poor Little Wife, you know how sensitive she is. But also, she is a smart gal with a lot of spunk, and nothing gets her down for long. She has a solution to every dilemma.

Little Wife ran to the bathroom of her basement apartment, desperately seeking the communal tweezers, hoping that none of her roommates had lost it. “Aha! There you are,” and she tore through the apartment back to her magnifying mirror.
She clutched the tweezers tightly. With a hand as steady as a surgeon’s, she proceeded with the hair removal operation. One by one, hair by hair, first the left, then the right, then the left and then the right. Plucking and wincing, plucking and wincing. The minutes ticked by, and then the hours rolled by. The sun journeyed across the sky, slowly setting uneasily into the western horizon. And still she plucked her eyebrows.

And finally when the moon was peeking through her basement apartment window, Little Wife looked up from her delicate procedure and said, “It is finished.” She smiled. Where the furry tail of a chipmunk had flourished on her pretty face, now there was simply a single line of tiny hairs arranged in a sweet arch over each of her sky blue eyes. Little Wife had controlled and conquered. She had left exactly twelve hairs on each eyebrow, and the look was stunning. They looked perfect, as though she had drawn them with a fine point pen.

Satisfied with her artful result, she applied ice packs to her smooth hairless forehead and crawled into her cozy bed for a good night’s sleep. Little Wife had at last found something in her life that was within her control. She closed her eyes happily, contented with her newly found power.

“Little Wife,” I asked her over our teacups, “What does that say about moderation, dear? I’m not sure I’m following you.”

She lifted her tiny teacup and took a small sip of her sweetened tea. “Well,” she said. “It’s like this. Life can be confusing at times. We don’t always feel we have the power to make the choices we’d like to make. We let other people dictate to us. And we often let our circumstances control us. But what I discovered in my time at college is that living by other people’s standards and expectations was stunting me. Like a lovely flower that is constantly in the driving wind, I felt myself shriveling and shrinking inside until there just wasn’t much left of me. At least I could pluck my own eyebrows! And nobody could do a thing about that, could they?”

“But Little Wife, my dear friend, what about moderation? I’m just not seeing the connection here.” Exasperation and confusion must have shown all over my face as I tried my best to understand what my friend was talking about.

“Moderation!” Little Wife exclaimed. “Why would anyone choose moderation ever? Life is to be lived with passion! Every single morning we should jump out of our beds shouting, ‘Yes! A new day!’ Live, laugh, love! Eat, drink and be merry! Throw yourself into life whatever your life is about! Be full of life no matter your occupation! Natalie, you are a mother by trade, and you must live your life full out, gung ho. Throw the oars and paddles out of the canoe and head straight for the waterfall, go laughing and cheering all the way. Don’t listen to all this business about ‘everything in moderation’ for goodness sake! What if I lived my life like that? I’d still have thick bushy squirrel eyebrows. I would never have been a three-time bride if I was living by moderation, would I? ”

And so I got my answer from my dear friend. Go out today now, gentle readers. Go out and dance like crazy WITHOUT moderation. Go and fly a kite! Eat a large piece of that chocolate cake. Hug your babies and your friends and your lovers like it really matters, because maybe it really does.

Be blessed today. Love, Natalie