It’s more than just going gray…

It took me way to long to embrace aging gracefully. I’ve never had great body image. I mean I never really focused to much on it, just always saw myself as the girl next door type, average and mostly carried a few to many extra kilos.

In my early 50’s I did have a narcissist partner who made a few body shaming comments towards me. I understand that this is what they do, but the things he pointed out, although mean, were true. From then on, they were the only things I saw.

59 year old me, can now look in the mirror an appreciate that I’ve aged well and although I’m a lil flabby and not toned I look pretty good for my age, not that that really matters, I just like that I am now able to acknowledge that.

A couple of years ago, I decided to stop dying my hair. For me I felt like my hair was my best feature. I’d dyed it a rich red/black combination of henna. It was a nightmare really, I used food grade henna, due to allergies. It was the consistency of mud and had to stay on for hours. Washing it out was no easy feat. And given that my hair grew so fast, it needed redoing every few weeks.

When I decided to grow it out, at first I looked like a skunk. Henna doesn’t fade out, it grows out.

I had all these ideas of hats and scarfs and hair peices, but in the end I just let it grow out and embraced it. Eventually the dark colour in the bottom of my mostly white hair actually looked good and intentional. It took a long time to grow out, two years, but now I love it. Whitish grey with some black here and there. Curly and long, a lil witchy, and oh so much easier than dying it. I’d been greying since my early 30’s, that’s a long time of maintaining that henna regime.

Choosing to go gray is about way more than going gray. It’s choosing to accept that you are stepping into a new era.

Now that I’m having chemo, I might lose my hair, but I see it as part of the process and don’t want to dwell too much on it. If need be, I’ll shave it off and start over.

Like with a lot of things in my life I wish I was more fluid with, aging is one of them. I feel like my over sensitive personality has made life more intense than it had to be. But I guess if that wasn’t the case I would have been a totally different person.

For me there was fear involved in aging, seeing the changes, navigating menopause and not really having anyone to bounce those concerns off, was challenging (thankful for google) but I got there.

A positive is, now that I am here and looking back, it is so much easier to, articulate and rationally process life’s events. To file them away with clarity, and a deeper understanding. To let go of the things for which there are no resolutions.

To be grateful for all that I have, to embrace peace and to tap into the wisdom that comes with age.

9th October ….

This came up in my memories today.

It’s so true. There just comes a point in life where the proverbial penny drops. It’s not that everything miraculously makes sense. But knowing how to deal with it all makes sense.

22nd November 2024…

14th December 2024

I like this…

12th February 2025