A Story About Eyelashes (That’s Not Really About Eyelashes)

As the title says, I want to tell you a story about eyelashes.

Except—it’s not really.

I’ve been lucky to have really long eyelashes. Like, graze-my-sunglasses-when-I-blink long. One morning, when I was about six months pregnant with my second son, I noticed my top lashes were shorter than my bottom ones. What could have possibly happened?

I switched mascaras, thinking maybe it was the formula. I became super diligent about removing every trace at night. I tried to stop rubbing my eyes so hard. I did everything I could think of, until I finally accepted it must be some weird pregnancy side effect.

But after my son was born, they were still incredibly short. I started taking collagen daily (because postpartum hair loss is also real 🫠) and kept trying to be gentle with them.

At around a year postpartum, I tried a lash serum. Still nothing. Eventually, I gave up. I accepted that this was my new reality. Of course I’d get annoyed whenever I put on mascara, but it was what it was.

Then, a few months ago, I was getting ready—not a full face of makeup, just a little mascara to make my light eyes pop—and there they were. My top lashes were once again longer than my bottom ones. Not by much, but enough to notice.

A few weeks later, I was biking and the sun was in my eyes, so I threw on my sunglasses— I felt it. When I blinked, my lashes grazed the lenses.

Are they as long as I remember? No. But they’re getting there. Maybe I’ll even gain a little more length in the coming months.

Now, I know—this is a long story about eyelashes for it to not really be about eyelashes. But I promise, it’s not.

It’s about this idea that we’re supposed to “bounce back” in six weeks. A year, tops.

Almost four years old. It’s taken more than three years for my eyelashes—this one small part of me—to even begin to recover from pregnancy. And no matter what I did to try to speed it up, the only thing that worked was time.

So if you’re struggling with not feeling like yourself, please know you’re not alone. And know that it can take time—sometimes a long time—to get those pieces of yourself back.