Embracing the Beauty of Aging

For as long as I can remember, my mother has been “old.” When I was 9 years old, I thought she was ancient. Of course, I didn’t know then that she was only 29 years of age. I was 10 years old the day I came home from school to find my mother sobbing uncontrollably. I asked her what was wrong, thinking that someone must have died. Nope! That wasn’t what was wrong. She had her 30th birthday and deemed she was OLD. I went upstairs to my bedroom and decided that I wasn’t going to face aging like my mother. I wasn’t going to worry about dying my hair or wearing high heels to prove I was still young, nor was I going to cry all day long on my 30th birthday. I was going to embrace growing old and enjoy it. I wasn’t ever going to be afraid of aging. I had a choice: I could grow old or die. It was that simple. I pondered what might be wrong with my mother for many years after this. Why was she crying instead of happy to be alive? It really made no sense to me. So many people don’t get to live into old age, so why not embrace it? My mother was spending more and more time dying her hair than she was enjoying life. When I traded in my glasses for contacts, she told me how “fake” they were. I looked at her incredulously and reminded her that her dyed hair was fake. She quickly changed the subject. <a href="https://medium.com/crows-feet/embracing-the-beauty-of-aging-653dc2cca9b9">Learn More</a>