I haven't written a great deal lately. You might consider that a hidden blessing, depending on your perspective, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't had anything all that interesting to say. It would be so easy to comment on every ill and injustice that is happening right now but screaming into an empty void isn't really my style. If you all are anything like me these days, you are exhausted. I mean, "fall on the floor ten minutes after you've gotten out of bed because the world is a flaming pile of pigeon dung" exhausted. It is my guess that you are probably even more stonkered by amateur hacks like me spouting bullshit from every corner of the internet. My malarky metre pings actively these days. I have wearied of friends, family, and mere acquaintances posting whatever brainfart they conjure and I have yet to figure out if that is a product of my advancing age or the first real signs of my own personal apocalypse. For the sake of my mental health, I am going with the "getting old" theory and I have decided that after more than two years of stunted personal development and growth, I am ready to re-engage with society. I pray to whatever deity who is listening that I don't bore the crap out of my tens of readers. Rather, I wanted to embark upon a year-long project of essay writing. You see, I have a pretty big and round-numbered birthday approaching at the end of this calendar year. I am hoping to record some of my thoughts about where I have been and where I see myself going as I climb that mound of advancing years and slip quietly into dotage. My goal is to find something worthwhile or trivial to examine in pixels every month. As it is now March, I am obviously already behind in this quest. Chalk that up to the aforementioned soul-crushing exhaustion. I promise to catch up so that hopefully, there will be a dozen or so essays at year's end. Don't feel obligated to read or to follow along. I am simply sending out a fair warning of my upcoming intellectual masturbatory tendencies.
As that decade of doom rapidly approaches, I really don't feel all that different from when I entered my thirties, forties, or fifties. Many of my old anxieties still haunt me. I still feel a roiling discomfort in my own abilities that I am certain to never fully shake. I don't want to suggest that I haven't evolved at all. I have definitely mellowed and the shit doesn't hit the fan nearly as often as it did twenty years ago. I have suffered loss and change and I have been witness to great joys. I have come to terms with the realities of life and have found most of them to be pretty damn good. If the past two years have taught me anything, it is to live every day as if there might not be another. It has been tough to do when fear and disease are everywhere and the boredom of isolation has fully ingratiated itself into my psyche. I will admit to thinking about death far more often than I ever have before. When you have lost people to this disease, pondering one's own mortality is an inevitable by-product of the process. I am not trying to be morbid but rather existential. How do I want to live the rest of my time? How do I wish those days to unfold? Nora Ephron once said, "Eat every meal as if it's your last; when the last one comes, you probably won't be very hungry." Do I really want my last meal to be a bowl of All-Bran because it aids in my digestion?
Lately, I have been giving thought to some of these questions. What do those next days and years hold? And so...I am answering one of the many niggling issues confronting me right now. There comes a point in every woman's life when she looks at herself in the mirror, sees the image before her and asks that age-old question, "Colour or grey?
The pandemic has made this question moot for so many. Allowing the grey to flow freely has been a wonderful side effect of the lockdowns. Those roots that cost so many of us thousands of dollars to eradicate are now liberating hues of silvery-white. And age has nothing to do with it. I've seen women in their thirties who are embracing the natural. I am fascinated by their serenity and the ease with which they have welcomed their new shades. They are so beautiful, each and every one of them. I see that shimmering halo of grey around my own crown and as I hope to embrace my inner Gloria Steinem, I yell into my reflection at the top of my lungs...
AH, HELL NO! I'M NOT READY YET!
I still feel the need to look in that mirror and recognize myself. Call it vanity or call it insecurity. I am going to continue to embrace the colouring bottle for a wee bit longer. Does it make me weak? Maybe, but the greatest part of feminism is being able to choose how I deal with my own body. This week, I watched a wonderful contestant on Jeopardy who was coming out of her last course of chemotherapy. In that first episode, her hair was long and flowing as she discussed her recent diagnosis and recovery. In the next three episodes, we discovered that she had been wearing a wig and that she wanted to show herself with her new growth post-chemo hair. She talked about how sometimes, cancer patients will wear a wig not only for themselves but for the comfort of others. She was insistent about removing the stigma and being seen for all that she is and all that she had been through. I admire her and her authenticity so very much.
Maybe when that birthday creeps up on me in December, I might try on a new colour. What do you all think of fuchsia?
