Perceptions of Age

I’ve been noticing in the mirror lately that there are more than the few silvery strands of hair that I recall seeing before.  I’m not anything close to “salt and pepper” but there are definately more of those silver hairs.  Part of me noticing this recently is that I have decided to stop coloring my hair.  I have colored my hair red since 1995.

I made myself a promise, long ago, that I would not fight the signs of aging when they came to me.  I might not fully surrender, I agreed with myself, but I would not wage the vain war that this society tells me I must wage.  Realizing that while I have enjoyed the red hair, it really isn’t doing much for the quality of my hair to continue washing it in chemicals every month or two, I opted out of continuing something I maintained out of habit. 

I also realized, in my recent observations, that my hands are beginning to show the early signs of aging.  The skin is not quite so smooth or supple.  The creases around my knuckles are a little deeper.  At times when I am tired or under large amounts of stress, the vessels stand up a bit on the back of them.  Some of the freckles I used to have are suddenly missing, and others look a little darker, and perhaps larger.  My face also shows the earliest signs of aging.

I am not saying any of this with a tonality that cries against an injustice.  Nor do I speak from a place of despair or regret.  I see what is, I recognize that it means the “blossom of youth” has finally begun to give way to the early signals of autumn’s approach.  It is what it is, nothing more.  I am human and that means that with time, my body will age.  Arguing or complaing about it, crying and fighting against it, is all rather pointless, isn’t it?

The society we live in is rather amusing to watch, and heartbreaking to participate in.  We spend the first part of our lives trying to become older.  We know that when we’re another year older, we’ll be happy because we’ll have that new freedom.  We are certain that turning 16 means freedom from having to ask for rides and 18 means freedom from having to listen to our parents, and the elusive 21 means freedom to visit bars and drink ourselves into stupidities we can’t imagine when sober, provided that we recall them afterwards at all.

And then, the tides shift somewhat.  Thirty, for women is “the beginning of the end.”  Unmarried at 30 leaves us assigned to the lives of spinsters, and thirty is when our bodies “give up on us.”  We run to fat, you know.  We become horrid, saggy, wrinkled masses, lose all appeal to the men in our lives, and are resigned to drunken nights in seedy bars hoping to catch a man who’d be so kind….

So then we spend the rest of our lives trying to become young again.

Well, if we’re trying to be older for so much, and trying to be younger for the rest of our lives… am I the only one who has asked us how we know what it’s like to be young, or middle aged, or old?  I mean, if no one is building houses, how can we know what it’s like to build one?

And so, while I am here at the leading edge of the process of becoming old, I renew my vows to myself.  I will not argue or resist, whine or cry or fight against this process.  This is nature.  This is the changing of the moon and the turning of the tides, the migration of birds and the turning of seasons.  I do not promise to grow old gracefully, but I do promise to accept it as it comes, in whatever time it comes.

And once I have grown old, I will let everyone else know what it’s like to become old without the fight against it.  Finally we’ll know what it’s like to build a house.