Danny ChaiI distinctly remember two specific incidences that made me realize that all is not well with my armpits.
The first was in junior high. One day after school, before going home, I played basketball for an hour or so. Calling it “basketball” is wholly inaccurate; there were a limited number of courts, and lots of people who wanted to play. For whatever reason, we never figured out a good wait system, and no one was allowed to exclude anyone else from playing (“No blocking. School rules.”) so the games typically degenerated into “jungle ball”, where there were 20, even 30 people on the court at the same time. It was insane. You obviously couldn’t dribble – you’d immediately run into someone else. It was hard to pass also. Basically, if you happened to get your hands on the ball, you chucked it in the general direction of the basket, and the massive crowd on the court would pulsate towards the movement of the ball. It was more like rugby than basketball. Yet surprisingly fun. Plus you never had to wait to get in the game.
That really has nothing to do with anything, but in any case, I played it, and for some reason I kept my jacket (I think a windbreaker) on the whole time. When I got home and took off my jacket, I was shocked to find large, dark, sweat stains on my shirt around my armpits. (I still remember the shirt – a short sleeve purple button-down. For some strange reason, I wore a lot of short sleeve button-downs then.) Of course I’d sweat in my clothes before. But armpit stains were the domain of large, strange, smelly men, not kids like me. I had never had to worry about that before, and now all of a sudden I had to add it to the long list of things junior high kids worry about being made fun of. It was a shock.
The second incident happened in college. I’m pretty sure I’ve told this story before. But one night sophomore year I was lying in the top bunk talking to my roommate, and I caught a strong whiff of something not unlike Indian food. It was strong enough that I had to track it down. And I did… to my own armpits.
That was more traumatizing than the sweat stains. You might not believe me, but I never had problems with B.O. before then. I did not even realize my body was capable of producing such odors. So discovering this was a huge blow to my self-identity. Not that I was a stinky person. Just that I could be. Devastating.
Those things sucked, but honestly, it’s worse now. Those realizations weren’t pleasant, but in the end they were just part of growing up. The things I discover about my body now aren’t about growing up, they’re about growing old, and that’s kind of discomfiting. Like, I regularly find white hairs in my nose now. There is no way to sugar-coat that; there’s nothing good about it. Proverbs says gray hair is a crown of glory, but this isn’t even lending respectability, as it’s unseen to anyone but me, a hidden, personal reminder that I am growing old. When I find hair in my ear, that’s going to be a sad day.
Random TMI.