Hey guess what? I’m getting older just like humans do. This weekend I celebrated my 46th birthday. I spent the day with the ones who love me the most: my daughters and my husband.
I wore a beautiful dress that was sent to me by someone else who loves me very much: my mother.
The love came pouring in via phone calls, online messages and texts.
I felt loved, appreciated and blessed. Aging gets such a bad rap and it’s truly a shame because in my experience aging and embracing the process is a beautiful thing. Why would you want to be any other age than the age that you currently are? There is no point in languishing for the past or yearning for the future especially since doing so makes you neglect the beauty of the present.
So many things about aging that I was led to believe would be unpleasant actually are anything but. For example, grey hair. My grey hair started coming in when I was in my 20s. I started dying my hair when I was a teenager just because it was fun to rock different colors and I kept dying it into my 40s, but in my 40s it was no longer for fun. It became about covering my greys.
One day I decided I was done dying my hair, that I was sick of the process and that I would embrace my grey hair. It wasn’t easy because it took forever to grow out the dyed hair, but that wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was all the unsolicited comments I got from people (family included) about how they didn’t like my hair grey and how it made me look older. I’m so glad I didn’t let those comments change my mind because it turns out I love my hair grey. I love the way it shines. I love the way it contrasts with the still darker parts of my hair. I love that I don’t give a sh!t if anyone thinks it makes me look older because there is nothing wrong with looking older. I love that it makes me feel like a rebel.
Also, why would I want to look like I’m in my 20s or 30s? I’m in my 40s and I’m OK with that. I don’t want to fight against time. I want to celebrate it instead.
I also want my daughters to grow up without a fear of aging. I want all future generations to grow up without a fear of aging. Why should we fear the inevitable?
I haven’t always felt this way about aging, but once I really let myself examine how I actually feel about aging instead of all the negativity I was being fed about aging, I realized that I’m fine with it. Aging doesn’t mean you get ugly or unhealthy or stop creating or having adventures.
All this to tell you that I had a very happy 46th birthday.
San Francisco, CA
ALSO READ: Things Lucky Store in San Francisco
I showed you mine, now show me yours.
Share your city/town/suburb/you name it! Think of this as a photography carnival that lets you share your part of the world and lets you travel virtually. If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!
Let’s travel the world together!
Grab the code from my sidebar.
When linking up please add the URL to your actual post not your homepage.
Reverse your candles and that is my age. I feel lucky to have reached this age, some people don’t get there.
I only have some grey on the sides and I colour my hair but it doesn’t really cover the grey. I also wear my hair really short, so it seems like colouring is an ongoing avtivity. I have thought about letting it go.
The thing is that I’m fine with people coloring their hair to cover their grey or for any other reason, I just came to the point where I realized that I didn’t want to do it anymore and that the only thing keeping me from going natural was that I was afraid people would treat me differently if I let myself go grey.
Intellectually I’m okay with aging but I do get depressed with how invisible you become.
I agree with you on that point, but I think that’s something we can change. Somehow we have devalued older people as if they can’t possibly be relevant and that’s simply not true.
Nice to see you are still blogging. I stumbled across your new blog while removing a spam comment from one of my posts from 2010 where I saw a comment you left back then. I am a few years older than you and have never dyed my hair and the grays are starting to come in. Nothing major yet, but not going to dye it ever…I think your hair looks fantastic! 🙂
Hi!!!! Aww, it made me so happy to get a comment from you. I hope all is well in your world.