Rip

I silently gazed out the tinted window of an unfamiliar red van in thought. Interrupting my thinking, I felt a finger poke my cheek. “You had an eyelash on your cheek. See?” she excitedly said while shoving the finger that my eyelash sat upon towards my mouth. Once she noticed the confused expression occupying my face, she explained that I was supposed to close my eyes, blow the eyelash away, and make a wish. I glanced down at the eyelash that grew out of my eyelid only moments ago and squeezed my eyes shut, then sent a small gust of air out of my lungs and towards the eyelash as my friend had requested.

“Why make a wish on only a small hair?” I asked, interested to hear her response.

“It’s the same as blowing the seeds off of dandelions and wishing on them as they float through the air,” she spoke, with a tone implying that I should have already known that.

With the explanation behind wishing on an eyelash, I wished to wish more. I wanted to make a thousand or more of the same wishes; I would wish that same wish until it came true. My imagination ran away at that moment, picturing how my life would change for the better if I could fly like I wished. It would surely be sensational, feeling the wind whip through my hair as I stare down at hundreds of vehicles slugging their way through paved streets.

That night, as I sat on my uncomfortable bed with my knees up in the air, leaning my back against the pillow I’d owned since I was a baby, with my face looking up to the plain ceiling in my room, I thought about what my friend had told me that day. I wondered if the wish would come true or not. It was only one small wish on an unrealistic idea, though, so the chances were slim. But what if I had an infinite number of wishes? Then maybe my wish would come true. I would have to wish for more than just to fly, though, because I’d have no wings. ‘Angels have wings,’ I thought, and I had always adored angels; to be one would be pleasant.

I slowly raised my hand to my eye and swiped my finger across the tips of my eyelashes. Carefully, I gripped a patch in between my fingers, and took a quick and shallow breath in. With a sudden movement of my wrist and arm, I ripped out the patch of eyelashes. My other hand instantly flew to cover my sore eye and put some slight pressure on it to lessen the pain. I maneuvered my body to face the window that the moon brightly shone through, brought the eyelash clump close to my face, and closed my eyes. ‘I wish I was an angel, I wish I was an angel, I wish I was an angel,’ I repeated several times in my head as I released the breath of air I had sucked in earlier. My eyes began to inch open, and I looked up to the sky, searching for the stars. I believed that if my eyelashes reached the stars, then my wish would come true. So over and over again, I plucked my eyelashes out, until there were none left and I was immune to the pain; I was determined to have my ridiculous wish come true.

My eyes felt naked come the next day at school; I felt before that my eyelashes had always protected me from the stares of others into my unique, French green eyes. “What happened to your eyes? They have no eyelashes,” a young girl that must have been around nine years old pointed out.

“I, uh, ripped them out,” I managed to stutter out in a whispered voice.

“Why would you do that? Wouldn’t that hurt?” she pressed on with more questions that I was unwilling to answer.

“No,” was all that I replied with before I rushed off. Thankfully, the bell had rung and I escaped back to class, hoping that nobody else would question me on my lack of tiny, curled hairs sprouting from my eyelids. Nobody did. I was relieved to know that there were no more questions; I hated lying.

Picture day came, months later, and as my mother carefully curled my hair for me she finally noticed my lack of eyelashes and asked what happened to them. “I don’t know,” I lied. “My eyes are itchy all the time and I rub them a lot, so they probably all fell out,” I continued. She believed me. ‘Damn my ability to lie so well,’ I thought. Soon after spilling those lies, I realized that I shouldn’t have said that; my mother instantly thought I must have had something wrong with my eyes. Many times I would try to convince her that I didn’t need to see a doctor, and that I didn’t need eye drops. How long would it take her to just get used to it?

Over time, my wishes changed completely. I moved through multiple wishes: for five consecutive days I wished to be an angel, imagining what it would be like to protect somebody while wearing a halo above my head and have white, fluffy wings protruding out of my elegant dress, and for three months I wished only to be pretty. I wished so damn hard. My wishes had become more realistic, obviously, but were still a far off fantasy.

Years later, in middle school, my eyes were too busy staring at the whiteboard to notice the stranger sitting diagonally to me staring intensely, studying my looks. It caught me completely by surprise when she blurted out the usual question “why don’t you have any eyelashes?!”

“Uh, -” she cut me off before I could say anything more.

“Did you accidentally rip the out with your eyelash curler?” she spoke in a gentler tone, to me directly. “I did that when I first used one. It hurts, doesn’t it? Once you learn to use it better, you won’t have that problem anymore,” she continued to ramble on. I just gave a small nod, tuning out her annoying voice, and feeling relief for the fact that I didn’t need to explain the truth.

I no longer wished for anything when I blew away my eyelashes at that age. I only pulled them out as a habit; a bad habit. I ripped them out when I was angry, frustrated, stressed, upset, or nervous because it felt good. I wanted my long eyelashes back again, though; I longed to feel them against my pillow when I blinked and to swipe my finger across them once again. Two months had been the longest I could ever resist the temptation. Each time they grew to a certain length, I gave in to relieve myself from the urge I could never ignore.

Only recently did I come to the realization that ripping out my eyelashes is not just a bad habit. What I do has a name. It’s a type of obsessive compulsive disorder, called trichotillomania. I’m lucky that I only suffer with my eyelashes; many others rip out their eyebrows and the hair on their scalp. One day, though, I won’t need to hide behind loads of black eyeliner, because I’ll have long eyelashes again, I swear.