Loving what Comes

For days I have been putting off renewing my driver's license. But today, my family was out of town, I was sick with a cold, and there wasn't really anything better to do than to go sit and wait my turn at the DMV.  I fortified myself with lunch at Tommy's Burger Stop, armed myself with reading material and got into line.  There was paper work to fill out, of course.  Very basic information that I knew right off the top of my head. Name, birthdate, height, weight.  None of those things have changed in between 15 and 46 years.  But the next question had me stumped.  It was: hair color.  My pen wavered over the paper.  I had always quickly written in BRN.  But, wait a minute, was my hair truly still brown?  I'm not sure.  When I look in the mirror I see pretty much the same color hair that I've always have. (Excluding those several years of highlighting.)  But when I see myself in a picture, especially from the SIDE, I am very grey.  BUT, am I MORE grey than brown?  I hemmed and hawed for a few moments and then wrote in the word grey.  I didn't even know how to abbreviate it.  

I think that almost all of us, men and women alike struggle with the process of aging.  And there are some ways that we can seemingly slow down the process with hair color and wrinkle creams, injections and surgeries, working out and eating well.  But, of course, time is relentless and there is no doubt that I am aging.  My hair is turning grey, my skin is getting saggy, and I have wrinkles in the weirdest places (There's this horizontal one between my nose and my upper lip. I never expected that one!)  Even if my abs were rock hard they would still be covered by wrinkly 46 year old skin.   

I made a decision a few years ago to not fight the greying of my hair.  I didn't want to do color and or highlighting, I wanted my own natural color and I thought that it looked really right with my skin.   It was also a deeply spiritual decision for me.  One of the reasons that there is so much stress and unhappiness in this world is because we struggle against what is.  I didn't want to view age as the enemy. And I certainly don't want to view my body as the enemy.  All of the parts of my body have been doing their job (and in my opinion doing it quite well!) for 46 years. My body and I deserve to show a little wear and tear.  We've been through a lot together. I am growing older and I am very grateful that I am still growing.  I am maturing.  I am becoming a wise woman.  I must affirm, nearly on a daily basis these days as I accept these changes in my life, that I will allow my maturity to show on my face, in my hair and on my skin.  

I realize that I don't just want to accept the changes that are coming with age.  I want to celebrate them and to love my physical self, to love the changes that I see in the mirror nearly every day.  

When my hair is not only

streaked with gray

but is gleaming  silver

from root to tip,

 

When wrinkles deepen

and my skin loosens

joints crack and my bones

ache with the weight of years,

 

When great age finds me,

I will be both more and less

Than I have ever been.

 

Then will I unfold

And my blooming will be so great

That my beauty will be

Terrible to behold