For what now feels like forever, Cara Delevigne eyebrows have been one of the most talked beauty trends around. Almost every beauty site on the web as at least one post dedicated to her brows, with a lesson or two on how to emulate the look. And I’m glad to see a beautiful, successful woman with thick caterpillar brows. But I don’t want them.

No, I’m not worried about the effects such eyebrows would have on my political career. It’s just that for me—and I imagine, for many women— thick eyebrows aren’t a trend. Thick eyebrows are a curse.

In their natural state, my eyebrows are intense. My unibrow made Helga Pataki’s look tame, and growing up (especially in the early 2000s) that wasn’t cool. Back then, nobody wanted thick eyebrows, and starting in middle school, most of my friends began to pluck their eyebrows into thin lines. If you’d told us then that people would be wearing eyebrow wigs in 2014, there’s no way we would have believed you.

My grandmother always complimented my lush eyebrows, and would frequently insist: “Don’t ever touch them!” with the solid wisdom of a woman who knew the pencil-thin trend would inevitably pass. But despite her wise words, I begin to pluck anyway. Ultimately the brows nature gave me didn’t let me feel beautiful or feminine. And even today, with the beauty standards that reign supreme, thick eyebrows are actually still hard look to “pull off” unless you have the bone structure of Lily Collins.

So despite Cara D proving that thick eyebrows can be gorgeous, I know the reality that they’re often not. And instead of growing mine out, embracing that my natural brows can officially be chic, and upping my eyebrow pencil game, I’m staying a slave to small eyebrow maintenance. I can’t overcome the deep eyebrow-insecurities I developed by growing up in a world where thick eyebrows weren’t trendy, and I’m not convinced thick brows are the best curtains for the “windows of my soul.” Especially when I know how fickle trends can be.