Wanna hear something funny?
Of course you do! Who's not looking for a laugh on this sunny day?
So come the middle of June, I'm being a total girl. I’m sitting pretty on the edge of the upstairs bathtub, shaving my legs, and talking on my cell with my BFF. I whine about my weight to her and how nothing in my closet suits my shape. She tells me of her biking regiment, asks me for my advice on artistic choices, and we swap grievances over our mothers (even though mine, who is reading this, is a saint).
A couple of swipes, I have the first leg done, my weight worries uplifted with my friend's encouraging compliments. I travel to my next leg, returning the favor to her by encouraging her future decisions in her blossoming steam punk jewelry line. That's when I tap my razor against the porcelain of the tub.
"What are you doing?" my friend thinks to ask.
I laugh, turning my foot to reach the start of my calf. "I'm just shaving my le... aaaggghhh!"
The blade cuts deep. Blood starts to bloom just above that annoying knot on the outside of my ankle.
"What’d you do?" my friend's voice lifts about ten octaves.
"I... cut myself!" I cry, and then proceed to laugh. And by laugh, I totally lose it. I mean, what are the odds? The minute she asks me, the plaque of a woman and her leg hairs strikes. Another point about God having a sense of humor?
"Ugh, look at the blood." I point at my ankle dumbfounded, even though she can't see it.
"Do you need help?" she asks and I'm sure she's picturing a gruesome hack job from my hamstring to my Achilles’ tendon. I tone down the dramatics enough to tell her that it's not so bad, but... Face it ladies, no matter how hard we fight it, how delicately we tread the razor over our damp legs, our stroke will be misguided at one time or another.
Unfortunately, my suffering didn't end there.
Tissues, tissues, and more tissues try to sop up the blood, to keep it from tinting the water... like when God allowed Aaron to turn the Nile with Moses' staff. I'm attempting this while balancing my phone between my ear and shoulder, my supportive friend laughing right along with me through the wires. I tell her about the blood mixing with the water.
"How dramatic!" she gushes and I agree. "Good, you think so too. That makes us both freaks... uuggghhh."
"Now what?" she asks, her voice between caution and exasperation.
"My skin's just hanging there." I tell her with a moan. "I'm going to have to tear it off... whoa, I never knew skin was that stretchy."
"I know, right." my friend sighs, her cool, sarcastic response saying a lot about her personality. I shake my head, spinning my legs around to stand and get a Band-Aid. But I don't even make it that far, banging my knee on the bathroom cabinet! A combination of its dull pain and another fit of giggles tip me sideways and I grab the countertop to keep from tumbling over. I continue to laugh, trying to get the story out to my friend. "I... hit... my knneeee..."
It's hopeless, as I'm lost to my levity in the face of my bleeding ankle and throbbing knee.
"Well it seems obvious that I'm distracting you." my friend makes the understatement of the day. "We should probably hang up now, while you're still alive."
I tell her good-bye and tend to my 'battle' wounds.
A year and a month later, I still find myself smiling at the memory. My legs (minus the Band-Aid covering my raw dot of exposed tissue) are as light as the air that's been circulating since the beginning of spring. My heart is satisfied at the community I got to have with one of my best girlfriends and the memory we made to tell our kids and grandkids down the road.
I'm also choosing to smile because I believe I have made a stand in telling the world what it means to be a woman. Men, I hope this piece makes you realize what we go through. The sweat and blood of our efforts, the risks we take with each week, each new shave... all so you can enjoy our seamless legs glowing in the summer sunshine!
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