246. Prayer From The Driver’s Seat

Sometimes the okay thing we share is a little weird. Today is one of those days because Nora wrote a poem about her chin hair. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay. We know that not everything is going to be okay, but we are here Monday through Friday to help you find the okay in your day and to share with you the okay things that we have found.  And today,  This is something that I wrote, found in my notes app,  don’t remember writing, and thought, you know what? 

I’m gonna share this with the class.  Here we go.  Lord, give me the tenacity of my rogue chin hair. You know the one, for you formed her yourself. She is iron. She is steel. Are those the same things? I only took one geology class in college.  No tweezer wielded against her shall prosper.  Lasers fail to stem her growth. 

Just when you think she has been vanquished, she rises again,  in the sharp light of day, suddenly visible in my rearview mirror.  Hello, it’s me again, she says as I pluck her out.  For weeks I idly brush my thumb along my chin, missing her sharp presence, searching for it.  She is not a sign of life’s futility, but of life’s indomitability. 

Bless her, I think, as I pull her out again.  See you soon.  That will really only make sense to, uh,  women with a rogue chin hair, but honestly, that is most of us. That is most of us. And, and mine, I just got her out yesterday,  ironically,  in my car.  When she became suddenly visible in my rearview mirror, and if I can give anybody a piece of advice out there, just keep a tweezer in the car.

Just keep a tweezer in the car where, when the light is harshest and you see that little chin here, you can just pull her right out, pull her right out.  Maybe someday she will multiply, maybe not, maybe she and I will just live together forever in this kind of symbiosis, this kind of tense harmony that we have formed. 

Anyway, I don’t remember writing that, but it was fun to imagine me writing it, and it was fun to read it, and I hope it, um, made you laugh, or feel seen, or reminded you to brush your hand against your, uh, chin, searching for that hair. And you don’t have to pluck it, honestly. If you like it, keep it. Keep it.

Keep it. But I like this little game she and I have.