I stopped being a child at the age of ten. The age when I learned that my armpits, like my intimate parts, must be hidden from the public eye. But of course, my armpits are much more inconvenient to hide, especially in a tropical country.
I remember each moment I failed in hiding that banned region of my body, and the consequences that followed. The first and most compelling incident was during gym class. In fifth grade, gym class was still a carefree time for play. “Use the schoolyard to play as you want, just be careful.”
After some deliberation, a group of eight girls and I settled on a simple yet exhilarating game of tag. To make it more exciting, we added a twist: a “safe zone” we called the pix. Anyone standing in the pix—the school kitchen window—was temporarily untouchable. To claim the pix, we had to stand with arms raised, touching the glass.
Arms raised. Such a trivial act, right? Not for me.
The game had started and drops of sweat fell from me as I ran around the school building, with its tufts of weeds growing around. Exhausted, I turned to the pix. Other girls were already there, their arms extended toward the glass, shaded by the castor tree nearby. My body was tired but energized, alive with adrenaline. How nice it was to be alive, to be a child.
Reaching for the window, I lifted my arm and touched the safety of the pix. Then I turned to the girl next to me, my play companion, my buddy. Her brown hair glinted in the sunlight, and her nostrils worked fast. Her pupils were large, fixed in a very specific spot. What was catching so much of her attention? My eyes followed the dotted line drawn from her gaze. The end of the dotted line brought me to my own body − my armpit, uncovered.
Oh, God.
My short-sleeved T-shirt had slipped, revealing Armageddon − a patch of dark hairs, thin, but unmistakable. The exposure of that secret to daylight, to another human being, who happened to be my classmate, filled my mouth with bitter saliva. My heartbeat pounded inside my ears, and my breathing was cut short. That patch of hair transformed into a sprawling forest, consuming me, my classmate, and the world around us.
I alone had entered the initial phases of adolescence metamorphosis. When the first hairs had sprouted, my mother had been firm, “You have to keep them hidden until you’re old enough to remove them. Waxing will hurt too much at your age, and razors will ruin your skin.” From then on, I wore only clothes with sleeves long enough to cover the “shame.” Every day, I carried that secret beneath my arms —a secret that could shatter my world.
But gravity betrayed me that day, and my sleeve slipped when I reached the pix. For a few agonizing seconds, I stood frozen. My right hand scrambled to adjust my sleeve, concealing the evidence. Too late. What had been seen could not be unseen. Knowledge was stamped on the girl’s face. My gaze desperately reached for hers. My eyes fell to their knees and cried a silent supplication. Please, don’t ruin my life. Don’t turn school into a place of humiliation. I implore you.
A voice broke the tension: “Let’s go, girls!” The game resumed, and we ran off, scattering castor seeds underfoot.
My legs ran, but my mind stayed at the pix for days. Hours, days and weeks passed. To my relief, the Earth kept spinning. There was never a comment about the pix secret, neither from the witness nor anyone else. That girl, whose name I don’t remember, gave me a reason to believe in sorority.
Even so, shame clung to me. It shaped my every action involving my arms. I stopped raising my hand in class unless I was wearing long sleeves, which was rare. I withdrew from games and activities requiring sleeveless outfits. You wouldn’t think there were many situations but the few that happened left a void in my stomach. A jazz dance performance in sixth grade. Oh, how much I loved the song flowing through my body and making it bounce like a flag in the wind. How much I regretted having to abandon rehearsals when the teacher showed the outfit we would be wearing to perform in front of the whole school.
“Mum, can I get waxed now?”
“Not yet. Wait another year.”
I skipped pool parties, day trips to the beach, and sleepovers, unable to undress in front of others. I couldn’t risk being bullied like my older sister, who’d been mocked as a “werewolf” by her classmates. That nickname left scars deep enough to unleash the onset of her schizophrenia.
At the age of twelve, my mum finally relented. There was no money to go to an aesthetician, so she made the wax herself, from a recipe in a women’s magazine. To this day, I cringe at the smell of honey and lemon combined. Mum got me lying on our kitchen table. She spread the burning-hot wax on my skin. Inexperienced with the procedure, she required several attempts to get it right. Blood seeped as she ripped away my shame. Seeing the black hairs glued to the cloth outside my body helped to tame the pain. Finally free. The possibilities of my new freedom seemed limitless.
Eager to celebrate, I wore a lacy sleeveless dress, a gift from my godmother I had kept hidden for years. Oh, the delicious cool air caressing my upper arms. My bliss was such that I sauntered outside, raised my arms to the sky, savoring the warmth of sunrays against my damaged, but free skin.
It didn’t last. Within minutes, a cousin of mine appeared, and his popped eyeballs told me that the exposure was still a spectacle. Seriously? Even hairless my armpits remained shocking to people’s eyes. The message was clear: It was not enough for the hairs to disappear. They mustn’t have been there in the first place. Any trace of their existence should be erased.
But that I couldn’t do. To this day, after laser depilation, I still cannot. My underarms remain greyish, dark enough to attract side gazes. And if there is something I hate, it is to grab attention for the wrong reasons.
I went to a dermatologist once just to hear her whisper with her – male – interns, “People come here with all kinds of weird stuff.” Weeks after the humiliating consultation, I was invited to be the bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding. I didn’t join the dress fitting session. I didn’t join the bouquet-catching fun either.
Since fifth grade, I never stopped missing out on things to avoid exposure. The saddest realization is that, as soon as puberty flooded my body, I never stopped keeping my hands down. I’ve lived with my hands metaphorically tied.
