NEW YORK—I’d like to say this for the record: I color my hair at the first hint of gray, usually once every two weeks. My hair started turning in my late 30s, and while this didn’t come as a shock to me, the early onset startled my parents, my father especially who immediately exhorted me to color my hair.
He said, “I can’t have a child who looks old because people will assume I, too, am old.”
Apparently he’d been telling his friends that I was still in my 20s, which was hilarious given that those same friends watched me grow up and could do the math.
Neurosis
My husband of 28 years doesn’t really care about what I do with my hair so long as I don’t drag him through the neurosis of my hair issues.
In three years, I will turn 60 and while that is a daunting number to contemplate and comes fraught with meaning and all sorts of implications, it is still nothing more than a number as in 12 multiplied five times.
Frankly, graying feels very natural to me and I rather like its softening effect on my face. It represents another opportunity to create a different look, a cause for reinvention and renewal. It’s like molting but without the feathers.
“Just because your hair is gray doesn’t mean you have to look the part,” declares Rudy, my beloved, newsboy-cap wearing hairdresser in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I live.
I know exactly what he means. Look the part is our code for old. Whenever I discuss going full-throttle gray with him, his mouth opens into a wide smile before it abruptly turns into a single, hard line and says, “No!” Not yet, he adds rather sheepishly.
Let’s face it, getting old sucks and looking old feels like a death sentence. My metabolism stopped working the day I turned 40. I absentmindedly stuck my mobile phone in the freezer before realizing what I had done and promptly took it out.
My body seems to erupt with more aches than it used to, and I’m making more doctor’s visits than usual. Every time I look in the mirror I see a new line come out of nowhere.
Be that as it may, I try not to think about my age or worry about looking old for the simple reason that there’s nothing much I can do to alter its course. I could stop looking at the mirror for starters, but that would pose a challenge for flossing one’s teeth.
Upside to aging
Truth be told, I rather like getting older and have never felt better about myself than I do today. There is, believe it or not, an upside to aging but unfortunately we tend to focus on the downward slide instead of the possibilities that lie ahead, including the sense of weightlessness, of being lighter than air, of doing things for no other reason than because we want to and feel like it.
The freedom to be who we are has never felt so sweet. I don’t think about my appearance except to make sure I don’t smell or have kale stuck between my teeth when I am out in public.
I can still wear the clothes I’ve owned since college, including a favorite that the great Auggie Cordero made for me as a 19 year-old, and has frequently been confused for Prada.
Some of those clothes may be a little snug but if I stop eating rice for a week (along with the occasional multi-grain bagel schmeared with low-fat cream cheese) and take three Spinning classes instead of two, the clothes will glide along my silhouette like Johnson’s Baby Oil.
I did get myself a pair of Spanx because I don’t always have the self-discipline to maintain an exercise regimen, but when I sprung an extra boob out of my armpit, I threw it out and got back on the bike instead.
But my face tells a different story and there’s no denying that it is no longer the face of a 23-year old.
Rich patina of life
That face, once young, smooth and wrinkle-free, lived in a different time and belonged to a different person. It had yet to acquire the rich patina of life stories that comes with personal evolution and growth. For far too many years, that person was dependent on the opinion of others, unable to trust herself to come up with her own. I did things because I had to and didn’t know any better.
That face also wore so much makeup, the skin beneath it looked like sheet rock. Without it, I barely recognized myself or who I was behind all that foundation and blush. I am not that person any longer and have no regrets leaving her behind.
I like the person I am today and never wish to be that 23-year old again, not even to reminisce about the good ol’ days. I certainly don’t wish to hang on to a face that is no longer aligned with the rest of my being or reflect how I feel inside.
That isn’t always easy because we are constantly assaulted to do exactly the opposite along with the convenience and tools to gratify them instantly. Everyone (parents, friends, media, Twitter, Facebook, my dry cleaners, and pretty much anyone who has e-mail and cable TV) tells us to resist and defy Nature’s course as if She can be persuaded to bend to our whims.
Looking fierce and fearless
What’s wrong with looking old?
There is nothing more beautiful than a face that shows the story of a life as it has lived and still living. A face that proclaims, “I am alive!” Every triumph, every adversity, every climb endured, every sprint completed, every breath inhaled and exhaled, every drop of sweat mopped away from brows that have been plucked thin.
I think of the writer Joan Didion, her face aged and weathered yet I do not see an old woman. Only a woman who has lived fiercely and fearlessly.
I look at my face and see the line from when I first saw Eli in a high school debate tournament and wondered how he got there. Just above it is the line from seeing Amalya belt out Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” for her first solo performance with a jazz band not knowing she could sing, much less sing in a way that would have made my father proud had he lived long enough to see her grow up.
I see a line between my eyebrows brought about by oversleeping under the sun without a hat while on family vacation. And that line over there, a little deeper and just above my lip, was from laughing and swallowing too much salt water while learning how to surf in Costa Rica in my late 40s.
There, too, are the lines of worry, sadness and disappointment: my father’s passing due to lung cancer at age 71; the rejection of my second novel; my children growing up and going off on their own; my aging mother; who will become the next President; my mortality.
Sometimes, even in the silence and emptiness of a quiet, uneventful day, I can feel another line growing, impatient to take over an old one.
Focusing inward
But rather than worry about things I cannot possibly stop or undo, I’ve begun to focus on what’s inside because that is something within my grasp.
Growing older, I have gained a greater appreciation for the things that truly matter, starting with thoughts and ideas inside my head and the passions that rule my heart and drive me to keep moving forward. They are mine and mine alone, impervious to the vagaries of time and not subject to the whims and follies of outside opinion.
I recognize and accept that someone will always have more money than me, be more beautiful than I can ever be, be better than me. But between my brains and my heart, I think I have a fighting chance to level the playing field.
Moving away from the narcissistic self is like leaving the tunnel of darkness and coming into the light of joy and rebirth. Instead of picking fights with Nature, I choose to embrace Her wholeheartedly and go along with what she has to offer because, at the end of the day, the sooner one gets with Her program, the simpler life is.
I like looking my age and I am not afraid to admit it to anyone who asks. In fact, I’d sooner tell you my age than my height. This is not bragging but a life-affirming statement of pride which you are welcome to agree with or oppose.
Today, as I look at myself in the mirror, I can already see the first hint of gray. I guess that means it’s time to see Rudy. Or maybe I won’t. Or at least not right away. I’m not worried. When the time comes I’ll know what to do And even then, only when I feel like it.
The author lives and writes in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City. She was a journalist and hotel public relations executive in Manila. Her novel “Always Hiding” was published by William Morrow and Company. She blogs as “The Shiksa from Manila” and is at work on a memoir inspired by it. She is married to Dan Schwartz and they have two children: Eli, 25; and Amalya, 20. They are also the parents of Roxy, a kerry blue terrier.