The Importance of Having Eyebrows

It is almost 2026 and new resolutions loom. These are they!

• Be at peace with my family, however strange their paths maybe

• Make my elderly parents laugh

• Get better at tennis

There's many less appetizing commitments to make. Drink less wine; make more use of the vacuum cleaner; give up chips, or crisps, or both. A resounding NO! No need to get puritanical just because you are entering your 60th year!

60 is quite the doozy for a girl. It is often the time of cheese and pickle. The time when aging parents form the top of the panini and the kids round out the bottom.

Not everyone can say this but my parents are some of the best around. When they call me because their email just disappeared and they really didn't touch anything, I remember having said the same about my math homework, multiple times. I doggedly describe the back button and the paper plane that denotes 'sent' but is indecipherable to a pair of octogenarians who grew up with rationing, not computers. My dad recalls, really quite often, his first taste of a banana.

And as far as tennis is concerned, patience is paramount. Your remnants of a thirty something self growls when you smash an overhead but somehow twist into an ungainly curtsey. Possibly the most unathletic pose ever. Yet when you hit that sweet spot on the forehand and follow through with Nadalesque topspin, sending the twenty something on the other side of the net sprawling, the victory lap in your head is deafening!

Strength and patience are required, and the essential wry commentary. Hence, when my 25 year old emailed this morning to tell me she had shaved off her eyebrows, I didn't panic. After all, it's probably a trend. I'm googling it now.