Façades

I am trying to age gracefully, but it sure isn’t easy. It would be so much easier to just retreat into my little house and write myself into oblivion. Here, I am the same woman I’ve always been, except that no one has to see the extra weight and the extra lines that seem to come no matter what I do.

Of course that is only vanity, or should I say, that is vanity!

Vanity, that terrible ogre who builds fences around me to keep out both the sight seers and my own fears of growing not just older, but less lovable as gravity claims this body.

It’s not that I am so terrible looking. People who never knew me “when” don’t drop dead from shock, or fright when they see me and my family still seems to look past this unfashionable façade I now wear, with loving eyes and kind words.

Only I seem to be having trouble with it. I am ashamed of this body. I am not ashamed of this soul, nor this intellect, nor this personality. In fact, I think she is growing finer and more interesting as she ages. Not that she is perfect in any way, just kinder, wiser, more loving.

Perhaps this is one of the last big hurdles. Learning to accept myself exactly the way I am and learning to stop caring what other people might think about that.