“My hair is really getting gray,” she says to me as she combs her fingers through a couple inches of waves.  “Do I look old?”

“You look your age,” I say.  And, because I know that doesn’t seem comforting enough, “You have a young face, but I like that you look your age.  We have enough people trying to act like they are younger than they are.  Culturally, we need more witnesses of how to get older.”

My mom is not one of those moms that causes people to ask us, “Are you girls sisters?”  She has not insisted on celebrating her “39th” birthday for years ad infinitum.  As a woman in her early 60s, her short hair is graying more and more with every year.  While I never really knew my mom as a young woman, I know from pictures that over the years she has changed shapes, sizes, and styles.   Continue reading “Aging Gracefully” →