So I made an appointment at my usual salon, with a guy I don't know, who specializes in applying these permanent lash extensions. With the help of my college friend/hair stylist I just 'happened' to know he was having a cheap Amazon deal and wheeled and dealed my way into a Saturday appointment.
The setup was this: in the salon I normally go to, there is a small closet size room with a curtain that is mostly open. so as you lie on this hospital type bed you can hear all that goes on at the salon, yet they cannot really see you lying on the hospital bed since you are mostly obscured by this curtain. Eyelash guy then applies these permanent individual lashes with professional glue onto your actual lash line in between your actual lashes. The effect is stunning-picture a modern day natural twiggy meets Sophia Loren. I was really excited to HAVE the lashes, but not excited about actually going through the process of GETTING the lashes.
OK, I thought- don't freak out, just lay down and chill out-who cares if you don't know this guy and he's about to stick his fingers in your eye? whatever right? No. Wrong. I laid down on the hospital bed where he then informed me "you are gonna be lying here for at least two hours so you probably don't want to drink any more coffee". Hmm OK. I will be zen and just focus on my inner light or whatever to pass the time.
So I laid there while he taped my eyelids shut. I can't quite explain why this is claustrophobic to me, but it is. I couldn't get over the feeling of being trapped. It didn't help that I am so damn tall that my feet were butted up against the wall of this tiny closet I was in, which I'm sure no one thought of since no one else in the world is as tall as me, and seems to have these types of problems. The thought of course of just ripping the tape off my eyes to freedom, did not escape me. Even though I rationalized in my mind that in the event of an emergency I would be able to perform this task of desperately tearing the tape off my eyes like a wild animal and thus sit up to safety, I still felt trapped.
So I managed to be an adult and lie still awaiting the torture that I assumed would ensue after the taping, but alas it was mind numbingly benign. Unlike the dentist, where you can focus on your hatred for the Dentist, here I just had to wait out what felt like someone 'sort of' about to touch my eyeball with a paint brush and then stopping at my eyelash at the last minute a million times in a row.
I started to relax, even though I couldn't move (or shouldn't move I should say). I realized that soon enough it would all be over and I would look like Bambi, I focused on my end results and zoned out on the hairdresser chatter outside the closet.
...and then, there is was, like nails on a chalk board-that familiar voice: friendly, withholding, and slightly hungover-HER voice, the voice of my ex best friend. It was unmistakable, I had known it since kindergarten, it was for sure Ex best friend. I haven't seen or spoken to her in four years, after knowing her my entire life. Even with sharing a manicurist, hair stylist, facialist, and multitudes of friends- I have yet to run in to her once in these last four years...
...until now. When I am laying on a friggen gurney with my eyelids taped shut. I immediately panic. I can feel my eyeballs go into what can only be described as an REM state back and forth inside my head like someone getting electrocuted. I can feel my neck pulsating, and my palms start sweating. It was horrible. I actually think I lost a year of my life from the panic alone. Wild thoughts crossed my mind: 'should I bolt upright and run to the bathroom before she has a chance to get settled? Maybe there's a window I can climb out of. " The idea of being trapped in this closet with this man I barley knew, locked in this corpse-like position while my frenemy lurked mere feet away, alerted all my warlike instincts: The enemy was approaching! and I couldn't just take it lying down!
I had to keep it together. "Get control bitch!" I yelled internally at myself: "You are 36 years old, you can handle this! You gave birth for fucks sake! You've done a triathlon! Stop acting like a crazy person!" and so, slowly I started the process of calming myself down. Crazy eye rolling and panting wasn't gonna cut it while some dude is trying to apply lashes to my face-I had to get my mind right. I had to stop my body from going into full blown panic, otherwise it was gonna be disastrous. The main reason I think i was able to physically slow my pulse down, was imagining the conversation I would have to have with eyelash man, that I didn't particularly like that much to begin with, about why I had bolted upright like a Frankenstein bride. "Well you see, I haven't seen this woman in four years and she slept with my ex boyfriend, no not while we were together, but it was going on for a long time behind my back and well, you know..." Uch, it just seemed so fucking stupid to be brutally honest, I just couldn't bare it.
I finally calmed myself enough, to not appear to be an epileptic on this mans table. I accepted the fact that Ex best friend would be there for the full two hours, getting her hair done while I silently listened to her every word. She would also be there when I would have to get up and pay at the front desk in this small salon. I accepted the fact that I would have to deal with the cold Clint Eastwood western style confrontation, while we obviously ignored each other while I tried to pay my bill. Each word out of her mouth made me panic deeper, but I was determined to gain the upper hand and be the adult. I would handle this, and I would do it with dignity God Damnit!
That's when I heard it, her flurry of goodbyes. She had come apparently to collect some product or the other and then leave again. I felt relief like no other, as I heard the jingle of the doorbell on her way out. Could it be? I wasn't just wishing it to be true, had she really left? Could I be that lucky? I strained my ears listening hard for her voice to re emerge amongst the hair dresser chorus-it was true, she was gone! ...and she had never even known I was there.
I excused myself from my death tomb to use the bathroom and stared at myself half finished in the mirror for a few minutes in great relief and exhilaration. I returned back to the hospital bed exhausted from from my panic. "Did you peek?" eyelash guy asked. "Yes" I said "and I look fucking amazing!".
