Loss of emotion, it seems a dark subject. Through time you learn to deal with numbness or find some way to move on. Some people take things for granted, I was born mostly of Indian heritage, and grew to be somewhat hairy. But at a young age I noticed I was different from other children. While hair seemed in abundance all over my body, it seemed to have missed the mark in a few critical areas. While my sideburns were oddly flourishing, and my goatee a thing to be admired... There was something wrong. Above my eyes, and well below my hairline, was a sad and lonely void, what most people call a brow or forehead, was devoid of any hair whatsoever.
You may stop here, and think, "so what? A child with no eyebrows." but we must look deeper, delve into the very soul of a man, to understand body language, my emotions were lost on people. Even experimental facial recognition software fails to work on me. At the age of 9 my parents decided I would need glasses, I wear them to this day, not to correct my vision but to mask the deformation. Step back and imagine how it feels to not correctly display shock, curiousity or even flirt. This led me to feel ostrisized by the other children, I did learn how to strengthen my other facial features to compensate, I could flex my ears in ways to tilt or raise my glasses to insinuate gesture. Eye doctors experimented with radical ideas, starting simple, placing hair from midwestern hare, a common rabbit, on the top of my glasses frames. This proved to be less than satisfactory, as every time I had to clean my lenses, someone would scream. Next was radical surgery to attempt to remove my sideburns, and stich them to my brow, this proved a faulty process as my brow rejected the hair, every morning I woke to hairloss, until I was back to square one. Finally for years, i dealt with acceptance, living in an emotionless world, I couldn't tell jokes, love was always out of reach, because women believed I just didn't care. As i felt more of an outcast I lashed out. Tattoos, and dreadlocks, I turned myself into a monster, because I already felt I was. Finally one day I realized maybe I can compensate in some way... Cosmetic tattooing is somewhat of an under appreciated artform, but I learned i could easily tattoo eyebrows on.
So the day finally came, I made an appointment with a talented artist. He looked over my face, took measurements and did several stencils before realizing the placement was nearly impossible through traditional means. Time to go back to radical ideas. I head read about a rare practice some poor souls underwent that could not grow moustaches. The fingers were the answer. Thus far I have undergone two lengthy sessions, and will probably need two more for full prosthetic eyebrows. I has to hire a fulltime in home rehabilitation specialist to teach me exactly when to reach up and how to angle my fingers to properly convey the emotion I needed. I still struggle regularly, forgetting when I'm holding something in one hand, I end up unibrow, which usually frightens off potential friends. I was lucky enough to date a girl for a while, that had an odd eyebrow fetish, she would lick the stumps on my face while I stuck my prosthetics places no gentleman should ever mention.
If this was enjoyable, you may want to read on. There have been several stories over the years I've been forced to make up, just to hide my true pain. Here are a few.
The first ever was that I was so moved by Pink Floyd's the wall, I decided to emulate his life. The next was hearing Marilyn Manson say on povitch "kids shave off your eyebrows, and kill your parents"
When aggrevated I'd simply say I lost them in the war, to which I'd always get the same reply "what war? You don't look old enough for any of the major ones" really? Pathetic that was supposed to be my way of saying fuck off, instead they question it further. Just last night I told someone I had a kind viatnamese woman who works downtown, she only charges me .50 an eyebrow to have them waxed. Saying I like the sting of sweat in my eyes when I jog.
When I'm feeling frisky I tell stories of waking to find a note on my pillow. "dear face, we aplogize, but we have left you for a face with more emotion, please don't call,let us find true happiness" rumor has it they joined with hasselhoff and were never seen again.
Another I randomly told, I awoke to find I was covered in blood, I freaked and rushed to the hospital. Upon getting cleaned up, the nurses saw that I wasn't injured, but I was missing my beloved eyebrows. A few hours into the police search my left eyebrow was found crudely shoved in the garbage disposal, and the right couldn't be found. After over three months, FBI found the right eyebrow hiding out in Mexico on a Spanish mans lip, he blended almost perfectly. Upon questioning the only reasoning he gave, was a fit of jealousy, as when I was curious, I always only raised my left brow. He just didn't get enough attention, not to mention in my younger days I had peirced my left eyebrow, making the right feeling plain, all the other eyebrows never noticed him.
I can't convey the emotion(literally) of having to identify my limp eyebrow at the forensic salon, they actually had to take hair samples to be certain,then attend one eyebrows funeral, to turn around months later and have to identify my eyebrow in a lineup of potential hair based criminals, and to sit front row through court cases, and attending when they took out the death sentence.
Alot of men are judged by the job they have, earning a living by the sweat of their brow,but this would blind me in a manner of days, I've been forced to make up stories of severe anxiety, or work in the hvac ac installation field,or deep freezer butcher shops to avoid sweat.
Surely you can see this has been a hard road to travel, but with my new prosthetics I'm learning to cope even joining a group, HA, hairloss anonymous. Most of the other members have very different but empowering stories of their own.
In closing I'd like to remind everyone I'm actually typing this with my brow fingers, I'd give a general knowing glance, or some form of affirmation glance, but my fingers are too busy typing to complete the look.
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