Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Razor Blade

The other day I was sitting in the bathtub shaving my legs - that's as inappropriate as I'm getting, promise! - and I noticed that the razor wasn't torturing my legs, like it had been doing the past few weeks.

Let me explain. Really: It's super interesting.

Ok maybe not. You can stop reading now. Thank you, and goodnight.

I have one of those Schick Quattro razors with the disposable heads, that are supposed to, with those four sharp blades, give you a mind blowingly close shave. That's a lie - your legs will still be spiky the next day - but it's the only razor that this klutz can use without hacking her legs apart. 

A few weeks ago I changed the head, and about a week after that I clued in that every time I shaved, my legs felt as if they had been rubbed with sand. They felt like hell.

In my mind I went "Hmm. Weird. Possibly this new head is faulty."

But I did nothing about it. I usually change the head about once a month and it was NOT TIME TO CHANGE IT YET. Therefore, I didn't.

So, my legs bled and burned their way through the next three weeks.

Fast forward to me sitting in the tub amongst Eucalyptus bubbles and the razor gliding in a smooth and pain free manner across my legs.

"Wow," I thought in awe, "it WAS a faulty razor blade head. You dummy! Why did you torture yourself?! This is the life. This is the way shaving should be. This is what my feminist foremothers fought for - a pain free leg shave. No wait. Maybe they fought to not ever shave their legs at all. Confused. Whatever."

In short: I should have changed the head way back when it sand papered my legs. Obviously.

And then because I am melancholic and read anything into everything, I stared into space for about ten minutes as the water got cold, and thought about all the ways I don't change things, even when they obviously aren't working. All the ways I make my legs bleed simply because it's not time to change the razor blade head, even though - no matter the reason - it needs to be chucked about three weeks too early.

I think it's a peculiar brand of stubbornness. Perhaps, even, pride. If a thing really isn't working, it's just plain dumb to keep moving forward with it, without either leaving it behind completely or, if that's not possible, changing what you can.

What's that Einstein quotation. Yeah. That one: the one about how insanity is when you do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Except I didn't even expect different results. Not even that! I just concluded that my torture was inevitable since giving up on the path I'd chosen was, apparently, out of the question.

And so amongst the bubbles, I had this moment of epiphany:"Stop it! JUST STOP IT. If something isn't working, fix it. Change it. Leave it. Move on. Something. Anything."

In short: If something is causing pain, I don't have to sit and endure it. But guess what? It's not just me. I know too many people who don't change the razor blade soon enough, or ever. And they bleed and burn.

There are too many things we CAN'T change about life. And those things - those things must be endured.

But if you can change it, change it, silly.

2 comments:

  1. Don't break up with me.
    Love,
    Your Chusband

    ReplyDelete
  2. Run Mary, run, and don't look back or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.

    ReplyDelete