I Am Getting Older: Looking Older

I do not like having wrinkles and gray hair. I was looking at some pictures of me from 4 years ago and the first thing I said was, “Look how brown my hair is!”. Of course, that was with quite a bit of cover-up help from Clairol, or whatever the hair color company was.

Unfortunately, a few years back, I decided that I am anti-chemical. I’m not exactly sure how I got to that point, but I think it began with doing research on coconut oil. I tend to start on one subject, and as I’m searching, I end up finding all sorts of interesting sites. All of a sudden, it seemed that I was reading about the dangers of the chemicals that are in shampoo, lotion, and other everyday items that we all take for granted.

As I’ve said before, I’m not an activist. If you want to find out more information on the dangers of chemicals in personal care products, I’d urge you to research it for yourself. A good place to start is http://www.mercola.com/. Be sure to confirm everything you read, although in this case it’s kind of hard since many conventional sites say that all of the products are fine to use and are actually good for you. Anyway, do the research or just go natural knowing that it’s more than likely better than using chemicals.

At this point, I feel that I need to put in a disclaimer. I am not criticizing anyone for their use of commercial/chemical products. I am telling my own story, not judging how anyone else chooses to live their life. 

I colored my hair for about 15 years. I ended up more reddish than brown for a while. I had a coloring accident that turned my hair black the day before I was going to a big wedding (our daughter, Carla, said that I could put on a leather dress and pretend that I was Pocohantas!). I am quite thankful for a beautician neighbor who was able to gently strip the black color out of my hair, leaving me with the reddish brown color that I’d gotten used to. Our son called me a calico a time or two when the color was growing out—I had the bottle color, my former natural brown color, and a lot of gray hair in the mix.

Yet with all of the coloring hassles, I didn’t want to go gray. I remembered a commercial saying, “I’m not going to age gracefully. I’m going to fight it every step of the way.” But I am who I am. I had a few gray hairs when I was 18, and although I don’t think I was “prematurely gray”, I definitely was heading toward being gray a lot sooner than I thought I should. I decided that I didn’t need to fight aging in a chemical way. I would obviously still be aging, and doing it in a more unhealthy manner by using so many chemicals to try to maintain a younger look.

I do want to age gracefully. I’ve seen some beautiful women, young and old, who have a head full of gray hair. I’ve seen women with obviously colored hair who still look old and act defeated. Whichever I would choose, I’d needed to simply come to the conclusion that I’m beautiful the way that I am and to carry myself with confidence.

And then there are the wrinkles. I will not stay out of the sun and I don’t use chemical sunscreen. The commercials that shows the products that fill in the wrinkles, plump out the skin, and make you look younger are so convincing to me. However, the fear of the chemicals keeps me away from them. I had found a natural lotion that worked well for me until the company went out of business. Now I make my own lotion. It’s not the greatest, but it works well enough. And I have wrinkles because I enjoy the sunshine and I’m almost in my mid-fifties. I laugh, cry, get frustrated, and live life.  And it shows on my face. But that’s okay, since I’m living life to enjoy it.

So, when you see me today, my face is wrinkled enough that you won’t confuse me with a younger woman, and you’ll see me with my natural hair color. ..which, by the way, I’d still say is brown. I know that I am not 20 anymore…or even 30 or 40. I do, at times, feel sad for the loss of my youthful look. But I look back on my life and realize that in the midst of growing older, I have grown in other ways, too.

My next post will be about feeling older. Just because I’m in my fifties, do I have to suffer the aches, pains and illnesses of an older person? I’m finding out that, although it’s not easy, I can take care of myself in a way that makes me feel so much better—and younger, too. Feeling young and healthy is so much better than covering up gray hair and wrinkles with chemicals to give the appearance of being younger. Being fit and healthy makes me be able to pull off the gray hair and wrinkles with more grace knowing that I may look old, but I don’t have to act old.