Double Nickel

In roughly three months, I will be celebrating my 55th birthday.  I only bring this up because I've been pondering the ramifications of growing older, as, apart from the alternative, it seems to be an inevitability.  Many realities accompany this conclusion, some over which one seems to have more control than others.

For example, Flyboy has reflected upon the very question that, in his own experience, has moved beyond possibility to reality:  Why does the hair thin on top of my head and thicken in my ears?  There is no good explanation...it just is.  He has not control over where his hair decides to grow (or not grow) but he doesn't lose any sleep over it.  It just is.

I have been cogitating on some of the deeper realities of life myself.  Such as, who decided that having gray hair was a shameful thing?  Or, on a more personal level, why do I think that looking like a grandmother (after all, I am one, and three times over) is something to be avoided at the hassle and expense of coloring my roots every 5-6 weeks?  I started graying in my early 40s, and have spent the better part of the past fifteen years trying to cover that fact, like a sinister plot being held at bay.  Frankly, I'm getting tired of the headache of it all, both the never-ending processing and the whole ruse itself, and as Flyboy has been encouraging me for the better part of the past fifteen years, I am letting nature take its course.

But wait...I have made an amazing discovery, thanks to the able counsel of a co-worker who was a hairdresser in a past life.  The reason I began coloring my hair in the first place, lo those many years ago, was not so much to hide the truth as to put some life back into the drab, non-color, dirty dishwater blah-ness of the shade it was becoming.  Now that I'm letting it go gray, I'm discovering that I'm not stuck with whatever color it happens to evolve into.  I can be gray.  I can be 55.  Only better.  Some highlights here and there are brightening my color palette and helping the grays blend in gracefully with the *dark golden blonde*.

This revelation is causing me to consider further applications of the same principal.  How can I be 55 (for real), but only better?  It seems to be time to contemplate my wardrobe, for example, and ask some probing questions.  Are my clothes age appropriate?  Flattering to my *maturing* figure?  Do the earthy tones I have traditionally been drawn to help or hurt the cause?  Is there a better way to work with what I have to bring out the best of 55?

And speaking of that middle-aged inner tube I'm carrying around my middle, am I just stuck with that?  And how important is it to me to do something about it?  Apparently not very, since it's literally be stuck there for at least ten years.  But is that where I really want to be?

Fifty-five seems to be a good place to get out of the traffic, pull over, and stop in a rest area for some deeper reflection about what it means to get older.

Besides the obvious (hair, flubber, clothes), there is a whole 'nother level of introspection just waiting to be explored under the surface.  Realizing that there more days behind than ahead begs the self-conversation and the prayer-conversation about what it looks like to finish well.  I figure I'll spend the next three months trying to thoughtfully answer that question and then the next however-many-years-God-gives-me trying to live accordingly.  Life is so much more that what we look like - or even about treating our body well.  It's about who we are at the core, and what our priorities are, how we treat others, and what we do with what we know.  Knowing is only the surface area of the matter.  Doing is what lies beneath.  Doing is what counts.

I'd really like to look back, three months from now and have a game plan.  A God plan.  A concrete idea of what the coming years should look like from the inside out.  I don't want to just go from home to work to church to home to work to church over and over again.  We all long for meaning and to know we're doing something important and fulfilling the purpose for which we were created.  I'm going to be asking a lot of questions.  And hopefully stumbling upon a few answers along the way.