March 31, 2001

Last day of the month.  Does this mean sunshine and green grass soon? Please!

     i cut my hair the other morning.  i woke up early 'cause i'd gone to bed by 9 the night before (not feeling good again - i swear it's the dust and dirt in this place right now) so i decided to get out of bed instead of tossing and turning, waiting for the alarm to ring, and trim the ends.  It had been at least two months, probably longer, since i'd touched it last.  

     i truly hate my hair.  It's baby-fine and wispy and i'm balding in the exact same pattern my mother did - right across the front like men usually do.  Thick full bangs are a distant memory.  It hasn't got a lot of gray yet, but sometimes i wish it would just get on with it since gray hair is usually coarser and easier to work with.   For now i can comb and style and my hair generally looks okay.  But i know what the next ten years will bring.  i'm not looking forward to it.

     And while i was cutting i was thinking all this and seeing myself look more and more like my mother and i suffered a moment of self pity.  i started crying.  Not a good thing to do when one's eyes are already hurting from the dust and too much computer work. 

     Then i got angry with myself for being so petty.  There are lots of things much worse than getting old or losing one's hair. Yet i don't believe i'm so shallow a person as to be completely labelled vain.  Maybe that's why i get so confused over all of this.  My mother's message to me, in everything she did and said, was that appearance was everything.  Without that you had nothing.

     She taught me that good grooming was essential and that being attractive was the goal, leading to success once achieved.  And sure, grooming is important - it's part of good health even - but i think she took it to the extreme.  And what good is perfectly applied makeup and well styled hair and expensive clothing if what's behind all that is flawed?

     She didn't teach me how to accept aging.  She didn't teach me how to be graceful about the lines accumulating around my eyes.  Perhaps because she couldn't.  Perhaps because she'd never had a role model herself, to learn from, since her mother died so young. Perhaps because she'd spent most of her life feeling that she wasn't pretty enough.  If she had been, then she wouldn't have had so many problems, right?  i feel sad for her when i have these moments when i remember how she thought.

     Her solution for the wrinkles was not of acceptance.  She paid a doctor to unsuccessfully take them away.  Was she so focused on the shell of herself because she was afraid to look inside to the person she was?  So then the constant obsession with appearance became a bandaid.  Like our house - it had a museum like appearance that had my mother's friends drooling in envy - yet all that fanciness was also a bandaid. It hid the unhappiness within.

     So i don't know how to age gracefully.  Maybe the whole concept is just a myth?  i struggle with not getting depressed when i look in the mirror.  i chant things like "but you are a good person and no one can take that part away.  So what if you don't turn heads anymore?"  i try to convince myself that it's better to be listened to than looked at.  Yet i'm still constantly startled when someone does listen.  i've only ever understood the 'looked at' part.

     i find myself watching older women now.  i observe how they present themselves and how they look, inside and out.  Most have similarities in common - a plumpness of body, gentle lines scratching their face, and a lovely, groomed, full head of hair.  It's as though they focus on keeping their hair perfect as the rest of them changes.  

     But what i really notice more is their spirit.  There seems to be a lightness in their approach to things, an acceptance that i never saw in my mother.  Perhaps that is the element she hadn't found yet?  Or would she ever have?  Somehow i don't think so.

     Still i understand how she felt about her hair.  She used to say - and i think it now myself - "if i have to get old, couldn't i at least have kept my hair to make pretty?"

     And i'm trying to stop thinking that.  Every intellectual ounce of me knows that hair won't make me pretty, or younger for that matter.  It takes much more than the outer shell to make one pretty.

     i think my friend S knows this.  She crops her hair as short as possible to be completely carefree.  Her only indulgence is colouring it a deep red.  Her face reflects her age and her body is comfortable.  She may or may not wear makeup, according to the moment.  

     Yet she walks with the confident stride of a ballerina.  She pairs a lovely scarf about her shoulders with a bright smile and a bubbly warm personality, and becomes instantly beautiful.

     i think i have a lot to learn from her.  Perhaps my desire to do so will give me that elusive grace.  And one day i too will be able to laugh at myself.    

     PS:  i like the first quote today