We are a family of winter birthdays so we get the holidays and all of our birthdays in a short amount of time. This year I was really thinking about aging and how it does not bother me much anymore. There was a time when I really figured that like a lot of the women in my family I would just cease to tell anyone how old I was, and constantly fight the battle to look like I did and feel like I did when I was 20. The funny thing is I don't want to be that girl at all. She did not know who she was, or what she wanted and although she would have told you she was not following the crowd, the crowd's opinion did matter way too much.
When I was pregnant with my daughter I stopped dying my hair as the chemical smell made me sick, and by the time she was born I decided it was long enough to just let grow. My hair is now sporting lots of grey, and although there are days when I look at it and grimace, I try to remember that people were meant to age. I can't ask my daughter to be happy with her body image if I can't find peace with mine. I have wrinkles, but they are not too bad, partly because I was never a sun bather, and when you really burn you have a tendency to avoid extended trips in the sunlight.
I guess what I am trying in a round about way to say is find peace with the here and now. You can try for improvement in different areas in your life, but if you are always thinking that you are not enough you spend your whole life waiting for something else. I have never been really good at waiting for anything. I am enough now. That is my birthday present to myself. Enough.
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