Streaks of silver frame my face now. I am a proud member of the umpteenth generation of Irish family and ancestors who possess thick, curly, brown hair….we never thin or go bald, but we sure do gray prematurely. I remember discovering my first gray as a teen. Shocked and sad, I hoped it was just a fluke. Slowly though, more and more white hairs began to sprout on my head. I began coloring my hair in my mid-late 20s and my time between dye jobs has now shrunken down to 7 weeks. As my appointment time would approach, a week or two before, I would get itchy and eager to cover them up, always wanting to look young and vibrant…or at least more so than these grays made me feel. I’m freshly 40, hitting that milestone in early March, immediately prior to the world shutting down in quarantine in the hopes of minimizing the spread of COVID-19. As days swirled into weeks and weeks melted into months, my family and I have dutifully remained tucked away in our home, much like the mystery ingredients hiding inside of a hot pocket. Stress and worry have occupied those many months and time or attention to superfluous fluff stuff like my hair seemed silly and self-absorbed. So onward we’ve marched. And now, here we are, and I am sporting a head of hair which is that of an aging woman….and…I actually accept it. Don’t get me wrong, as soon as I can slip into a salon, I’m excited to put the mask back on…for what reasons I still do not yet fully understand…but for these quarantined moments, I find myself curious, in awe and humbled. I’m 40 years old now. I’m not a teen or a twenty-something or even in-my-thirties. My oldest of four becomes a *teenager* this year. This seems…right. And I want to honor these grays for all that they remind me of. All the life I’ve been blessed enough to live. The stresses I’ve endured. The joys I’ve basked in. The hardships I’ve overcome. The laughs-that-make-your-belly-sore that I’ve savored. The nights when sleep evaded me. The wild ocean waves that I’ve slipped into, my hair and skin warmed by the lemon rays of sunshine falling from the sky above. I see these grays now and I think “yeah. That’s right. I *earned* those. I *get* to see those.” It certainly puts any pettiness I may have into perspective.
Similarly, I now look down at my bare feet and for the first time in *decades* I see naked tootsies. No polish glinting in the sunshine…and I find myself taking pause every time I catch a glimpse. It’s so odd and so silly….but for so many years, I haven’t had the time to think for a second about my toes since becoming a mother and sleeping odd hours and running after toddlers and preschoolers and carting big kids to sports and games and tournaments. Amidst the madness though, there was always a bit of polish, sometimes even just a hint of a pedicure that once was long ago. But now, here we sit. And I see these beautiful feet. Feet that have danced… as a young girl at a little dance studio on pointe shoes, and awkwardly slow dancing with boys in middle school, at crowded sweaty bars as a college student, in wild electronic discos in Spain, to Sinatra’s Time After Time on my wedding day cheek to cheek with my incredible brand new husband, swaying while holding my babies as I lulled them to sleep, on backyard patios at the 40th birthday parties of friends… Feet that have run marathons and 5ks and ten-milers. That have walked me into doctors offices when my body was failing me. That have lounged on beach chairs on vacation without a care in the world. That have hiked me up to mountaintops to pause and appreciate how small we are in this world.
The truth is, this experience has been a time of looking in. And at. And around. And next to. Away from the news, in the quiet, we’ve had ample hours to reflect and take stock and see. We have had minutes and minutes to think and worry and fear…but also to appreciate. To radiate gratitude. To love life without a filter. What nuances to your life have you found? What slivers of beauty do you possess? What signs of life, or age do you see? What do you observe as being good in your orbit? I promise you there is something. Our only collective challenge is to find it. ✨
Care to share your thoughts?