Nail Polish Nirvana

I turn 58 in the spring. With the prospect of my life getting shorter I have the urge to Dare Beautiful Girl. Like the words on three poetry dog tags I inserted in a ball chain to create a jewelry poem.

In keeping with this I’m emailing elected leaders on issues that should be taken up. Like acting on the 100+ year-old promise to give the Cherokee Nation a seat in Congress.

Elsewhere what I’m doing points to the fact that a person is not ever too old to change their tune.

All my life I’ve only used clear nail polish to give myself a manicure.

This week I didn’t want my talking hands to fade into the woodwork either.

Confetti-sparkle nail polish to the rescue.

Out of the blue I craved color on my hands to express a lively feeling.

Wit happens when you’re 57.

I see the world differently than I did at 27.

It’s called risking. And risking that my nail polish might chip.

This is neither here nor there in the scheme of world peace.

Yet anything that would make the trial of being a caregiver today worth it I’ll take.

We should cherish that our mother or father is still alive. Forgive them if we must for how our childhoods were.

Often: “The pain is real” as the expression goes. Whatever trial we’re going through I say:

To turn an ordinary day into a celebration buy that $5 bottle of nail polish.

What I would like to do when I retire is volunteer my time to take individuals with disabilities to Sephora. To pay for them to get a makeover.

Neon green nails here I come!

Change of Life Change of Outlook

I should not be so nonchalant about telling people my age–57.

Yet living through “the change of life” is central to what I want to say.

Dissatisfied I was reading the first few pages of No One Tells You This–the memoir of a 40-year old woman with no kids and no husband.

I’m writing a second memoir that I would like to publish within two years.

It’s about having my cake and celebrating each new birthday with glee not gloom.

No one talks about being a Generation X Girl living in menopause.

I will do this. Born in the first year of the Generation X cohort I don’t want to be rendered invisible.

Not everyone is a member of “the sandwich generation.” For those of us who are single our lives are often an “open-faced sandwich” acting as the caregiver without children of our own for a mother or father.

This time of life isn’t so terrible even though the pain can be real for a lot of us.

We have only this one lifetime. Use your regret as the catalyst for changing your life for the better. Today is the day to Just Do It.

It can seem like on one ordinary day you pivot on a dime. Most likely this urge was percolating in the coffee pot of your brain for a while. Until it reached the boiling point.

One day you choose to do something totally not like you. Unlike everything you’ve done before.

At 57 I’ve become electrified to Make It Happen–whatever I fancy I want to do before 60 kicks in.

Cherish 50 while it lasts. Grab the bull of life by the horns and ride wild. These can be the best years of our life. At 60 I imagine the bull will get tired of stampeding. Want to laze and graze in the grass.

Our fifties really are the Dangerous Decade. A lot of us are no longer satisfied with the way things are. We risk bending, breaking, and rewriting the rules.

Coming up: How at 57 I’ve become a quick-change artist.

Facing Our Faces

Magazine articles talk about how the use of filters on selfies has altered how women view themselves.

Seeking perfection is a myth because it implies there can be no growth. Achieving a perfect state there would be no higher you could go.

I’m doing things differently today to dismantle perfectionism.

The idea of not using a filter to change the appearance of my face and body appeals to me.

It’s a radical risk to go outside with your hair undone or your face without makeup. Mostly because women are held to and buy into a higher standard of what’s right.

The part of me that resists want to disrupt the traditional notion of what’s acceptable beauty.

At 55 years old I no longer cover applying a full face of makeup.
Those Sephora makeovers were gorgeous yet impossible to maintain day in and day out.

As well getting dolled up that way in my OKCupid photos did nothing to entrance men to send me messages.

It is in the imperfect where everyone shines as human beings who are our authentic selves.

Now I’m owed a free Sephora makeover. This time I will get one with a twist: to tell the makeup artist to use only 5 products. To design a look I can recreate on my own.

Today I think it’s time to celebrate differentness.

Glossy and stylized images aren’t real.

After the pandemic is over I intend to experiment with makeup in a subtle way.

Bravery is called for no matter how old a woman is.

The daring to look in the mirror and shout:

“I see you. I celebrate you.”

Real beauty is what’s on the inside. Expressing the inner outwardly is the goal. This is when a person is most beautiful:

Not being afraid to express themselves.

In the coming blog entry I talk about my experience getting a haircut during the pandemic. The photo of my haircut is unretouched. Without using a filter. In it I used only foundation blush mascara and lipstick.

You could call this approach a makeunder instead of a makeover.

There’s a thin line between art and artifice.

It’s time to get real. Some of us are getting depressed seeing photo-perfect images on Instagram.

My hope is to empower blog readers to do your own thing not what society tells you to do.

Colors of Compassion

mardi gras outfit

The photo above was taken at a poetry event.

I had thought the theme was Mardi Gras so dressed in carnival colors. The night’s theme turned out to be homelessness.

Green is for faith. Gold or yellow signifies power. Purple denotes justice.

The symbolism of the colors is beside the point. The picture points to another story.

This is the photo of a woman living in menopause.

I’ve learned a lesson viewing this picture: it’s time to halt obsessing over things that don’t matter in the scheme of things.

Like a lot of woman, I critically assessed my features. I wasn’t happy with my skin showing through my foundation. I envied women with creamy smooth skin that looks flawless without makeup.

In the photo I’m wearing MAC Pro Long Wear foundation, Sephora brown eyeliner and NARS Shrinagar lipstick–a sheer raspberry.

And I look perfectly fine in the photo. Which proves my point that all of us are going to live too long on earth to continue obsessing that parts of ourselves need fixing.

I’m rolling halfway to 60. I used to be 50. As a feminist who is attracted to men I can attest to the idea that maybe I’ve gotten folded up over this.

I might have despaired because I’ve yet to find Mr. Right. And I haven’t found Mr. Almost Right either. Nor have I found Mr. Not Right Yet I’ll Take Him Anyway.

Acting kinder to ourselves is the way to go as we get older.

To take the stance: “And what is it to you if I don’t measure up to society’s–or a man’s–impossible standard for how a woman should look, act, dress, and live?”

All hail those of us who DV8 from norms. Praise be the sisters among us who dare to rock our natural faces. Who don’t care what others think about us.

I say: it’s time for a global uprising of women asserting our power to act true to ourselves.

In a world where the focus has been on women’s bodies and how we look, let’s not buy into this myth that we are nothing without Botox.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we should be beholding our own beauty.

I think everyone living on earth is beautiful. If you do too, I urge you to consider that you are beautiful just the way you are.

God doesn’t make junk.