Oh, the Horror.

Loshang (haggard) is the last thing I ever want to be.

As the youngest of a litter of ten, I watched my siblings grow up, marry, and eventually have children of their own. Through keen observations of a true blue loner and a ridiculously vain one at that, I saw and cringed at the sight of wrinkles, sagging skin under their chins, and unsightly dry frizzy hair as age took ahold of them.

Oh, the horror. It was like they were transforming!

It wasn’t just my siblings. No one was spared. Every one was getting old. Some aged with grace while others let themselves go. I vowed to never be the latter. To always appear youthful and put together, I became religious in exercising, drank gallons of water, had tea thrice a day to keep my mind sharp, avoided fatty and sugary food, and spent hours on end grooming myself --- all these to shun the inevitable. With that said, I knew at some point it was bound to happen. Just that I didn’t want it to happen to me. Yet.

Everything was working out so well --- until my daughter’s nanny decided to go missing. Thus, a two year old took over this single parent’s life with one mindless task after another, with screaming tantrums that never end, and with nights when she wouldn't let me sleep. I felt my fool-proof plan to fight the dreaded loshang process was slowly falling apart.

On my seventh week of being help-less, it was only now that I had the chance to stand in front of a mirror. And this is what I saw --- dry frizzy hair!

Alas, the transformation has begun.