Hey guys,

I know you’re probably like, “Wait, didn’t you just give this whole tearful drama queen goodbye and bounce like a month ago?” Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint you: I’m still here. I didn’t die—even if all of Southern California did for the past month. (Holy shit, L.A., I don’t even know what to tell you. I just threw some money randomly your way and a lot of psychic well-wishes to my friends. I don’t really have any particularly memorable former lovers there, otherwise I’d acknowledge them, too. Please take some of our rain <3).

It's the Jewish tree lover holiday Tu BiShvat, the reassigned martyr-for-love St. Valentine’s holiday, and National Cream-Filled Chocolate Day (!!!), and I’ve been dry as a bone down there for the past six months. I can’t even love myself because I’m that stressed out. Thanks, Republicans. Total cockblocks, as always. I’ve never been much of a romcom fan (which I chalk up to having a Venus in Aries and an Aquarius Moon), so I decided to make it a Bisexual BiShvat by watching Disobedience—the 2017 chaotic Orthodox romantic drama starring Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola. (Bet you didn’t see me connecting all those dots, did you?).

Honestly, it wasn’t even intentional; I was hoping I’d feel something, and a romcom just wasn’t gonna cut it. Plus, I wasn’t watching Babygirl again since the internet decided to remind me of that scene with Harris Dickinson dancing to “Father Figure” with whiskey swagger in hand—a detail that I had conveniently chosen to forget when I left the theater while flirting with the idea of working in an office again. But no, the internet insisted I never forget. It’s like no one wants me to experience pleasure again, and I hate it. None of us are free when Carly is oppressed.

Anyway, the real reason that I’m breaking my superficial and completely untenable vow of silence is because I just gave myself my first bikini wax, and I just had to tell you all about it. I did it on the floor of my bathroom in the middle of a Monday afternoon—begrudgingly, but enthusiastically, like many of the things that I do in the name of living life to the fullest while transcending the limitations of time and space. Somehow, in this lifetime, a DIY bikini wax also happened.

As a feminist raised entirely within an all-female household of women who could give a shit, getting into bikini waxes was an entirely societally formed idea rooted in patriarchy that was completely very foreign to me. No one in my family does it and would probably laugh at me for admitting such a ridiculous thing in casual conversation. But as always, when curiosity gets the best of me, I do it in the name of journalism.

This was my inner monologue: I’m going to write about this. Maybe I can pitch it as a “Trauma Rama” to a women’s lifestyle magazine. Surely, I’m not the only one who has thought about this and needs someone real and relatable that isn’t Reddit—but from the perspective of someone who took the time to read Reddit before embarking on this journey. This is journalism. Give me the Pulitzer.

Bikini waxes are a weird form of self-torture, so I have a pretty complicated relationship with them. They’re kind of traumatizing, if we’re being perfectly honest. Most people who wax don’t think twice about it because it does feel nice after, and it gets easier the more you do it. It’s a lot of personal upkeep, so you essentially become high-maintenance by default. Still, getting to that point is a real sacrifice and act of self-violence in the name of beauty, which is honestly a lot of beauty: pain.

Like everything I learned about womanhood, I learned from other women because I was convinced that my household was full of freaks. Lovable freaks, but freaks, nonetheless. If I wanted to be “normal” I certainly wasn’t going to learn it there, and that included learning how to suffer in uniquely modern ways—such as going to strip mall tanning salons to play Russian Roulette with cancer and premature aging (which I’ll obsess over for the rest of my life) and getting my genitals waxed. Waxing is intersectional self-torture: anyone can do it, no matter your age, gender, or identity—you just have to want to try.

So it was other women who brought me to waxing. This was not a home-grown value. Certainly, no one I dated would dare insist on any type of pubic hair preference—this was something I was doing for myself simply out of principle: I wanted to enjoy my own body and was willing to suffer for it. (Interestingly, many of the younger women I spoke with on this topic swear by lasering and using Groupons to do it).

I don’t know what I was expecting by doing this myself. After all, each experience is so unique traumatizing in its own special way. You’re opening your entire world to a complete stranger to commit a consensual violent act in the name of beauty, then paying for it. The experience really matters here, so I prefer to keep it comfortable. The goal is to look and feel beautiful, and if I’m paying for it, then I’m not going to feel that way sitting in a cheap shithole with halogen lights that’s probably a front for some nefarious business just because it saves me $10.

Still, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten waxed over the course of my whole life. My bathroom floor for a DIY experience? Totally different thing. Obviously, this was a pretty once-in-a-lifetime experience that needed to be documented, so I did it mid-day on a regular workday. Is there a better time than that?

I picked up a waxing kit from KoluaWax after reading several ratings among the thousands of people who decided to torture themselves at home.

“You can do this,” I told myself, simulating a quick rip across my overgrown bikini line while envisioning a million different hairs being pulled from the root at once just as I had done the handful of times before. My brain starts fighting with itself, trying not to psyche itself out:

“What in the actual fuck? Why are you doing this?”

“Well, I’m going on vacation and it’s going to be so much better than shaving.”

“Yeah, that’s true…”

“I mean, waxing really is a game-changer once you get into it. No more razor burn, takes a while to grow back, grows back naturally…”

“Ugh, yeah. OK, you’re right. I can do this.”

By the time the kit showed up, I was actually kind of excited and in a DIY spirit. I had just finished putting up some new wallpaper and installing some shelves, getting a new throw blanket—really freshening up my space. What’s ripping a few hairs out by the root before skipping off to celebrate my 40^th south of the border?

Pro-tip: Should you decide to follow my lead, get hard wax, not soft. Always use the provided cleaner and post-wax liquid treatments. I also suggest baby powder to help dry everything, making it easier to pick up and avoid redoing it a billion times while wasting wax—which is not very cheap, by the way.

My bathroom is tiny, and the cord for the wax heater wasn’t very long, so I found myself contorting into a pretzel like a Cirque du Soleil attraction on the tile floor, wedging my neck against the sink basin while slathering thick smears of dark blue wax across my most sensitive areas.

Even though it was awkward and painful, doing it at home was weirdly more rewarding. It became another way to feel intentionally connected with my own body, on my own time. It felt brand new to me, even as I approach 40 next week and should know myself better by now.

Forty almost feels like a second puberty. My body is changing, and I’m appreciating it in new ways—like the euphoria of self-torment in the name of beauty. Some people will never fully self-actualize, while others have self-examined so tediously that they now need to learn how to love themselves after a lifetime of self-hatred.

I did an OK job all things considered. It’s perfectly imperfect, just like me. But it was worth it for all the things I was promised: no razor burn, no statement bush, and soft skin that’s only mine to touch and love. What a gift.

Love, C

P.S. - Next week is my birthday, so I’ll try to send a postcard from Puerto Vallarta. Also, if you Google “Gulf of Mexico,” it will automatically take you to “Gulf of America,” the most idiotic waste of taxpayer dollars I have ever heard in my life and does not improve my image of Gulf Coast residents, even though I keep trying so fucking hard to give them the benefit of the doubt time and again lest being labeled a snobby fuckin’ New Yorker—which they continuously call me anyway, even after I throw money at them time and again to fix their own fucking problems that they created themselves. (I’m not rich just because I live in New York, guys. Sorry).

Anyway, if you click the three little dots next to “Gulf of America,” and click “Send Feedback” you can click on the “Gulf of America” portion of the page and select “Inaccurate Content” and “Incorrect” and write “This is the Gulf of Mexico” that should let Google know that they’re spineless morons.

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