Is it possible to feel younger once you see the telltale signs of getting older? For example, while drying my hair today, I noticed that I am starting to see a few gray hairs. It got me thinking. My mother doesn’t even have gray hair or at least I can’t see any. Granted, my hair is dark and they show up a lot better than they do in my mother’s blonde hair. My mother acts a hell of a lot younger than I do, so maybe that’s why. Who knows? The point of all of this babbling is this: The gray hairs didn’t make me feel old.

A couple of years ago as I was approaching 35, I felt like a very old, very out of touch, very not with it aging hag. Sounds harsh, I know, but this is how I felt. It was completely unreasonable and probably not warranted, however, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was not aging well. I had lots of things on my mind and had convinced myself that I had to have reached a certain place in my life when I turned 35. I should have finished college, settled down some, had a great job, etc. Although I had actually done all of these things, I just wasn’t satisfied. In the course of getting all of these things done, I had almost completely forgotten how to have fun.

Sure, I still went out to sing karaoke on the rare occasions when my husband and I could get a sitter for our daughter. We also managed to do a few fun things as a family, but there was all of this stress. This bunch of crap that made the fun almost too much of a chore to bother with. So, as you might have guessed, we made some changes or at least I did. I started trying to find ways to get in touch with the old me. Well, not the “old” me, but the previous me. The one I used to actually like. I started trying to make time for my own hobbies and things that used to make me happy. Before long, these little steps added up to one big shift in my attitude. By the time I turned 36 this year, I felt much better about life. Granted, I still have some days, as every woman does, when I feel like an old hag. The difference now is that I’m actually looking forward to turning forty. The gray hairs made me smile a little because I know now that they aren’t going to mean I can’t be myself. They just mean I’ll look more distinguished while I’m being me. 😉

Until next time…

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