Beautifully Aging

Good morning! No makeup no filter...didn't even run a comb through my hair.

My body has taken care of me for a long time.  Youth is fleeting and my skin is beginning to show the wear and tear of battle. I’ve been having dreams that I pull fists full of hair from my scalp.

Vanity dreams. When I wake up I want to shave it all off. How dare you control me!

It’s summer and I’m back to bare feet and urban gardening. I’ve let more of the sun touch me this year with minimal cotton coverings. The worry of protecting it is no longer there. I'm healthier than I've ever been, having let go of all the packaged things marketed to make me a better me. I've felt more alive when there’s less between the air and my skin and eating raw food straight from the ground I planted it in. 

I lie in the grass and let the ants scurry over my feet and legs. I concentrate trying to feel their tiny feet but I can’t, just the tiniest tickle of the occasional nerve ending. I feel the winged insect land. It stays on my arm and doesn’t move. It’s a bold creature; perhaps it’s studying me too. I count six different kinds of insects investigating my skin.

They are indifferent to its imperfections.

Like them, my outside only protects the more vulnerable interiors.

It’s just skin.

I spend more time caring for it than I do my heart.

I spend more time worrying about it than I do my life.

Another’s skin isn’t what draws me in, it isn’t what makes them beautiful, kind, or funny.  I only find comfort in their skin after I’ve found love in their heart or safety in their embrace. Yet, I let my skin tell me if I’m beautiful. What a crock of shit.

The unique way each and every one of us expresses ourselves makes us beautiful.

The stories of what we’ve lived through coupled with our hopeful dreams.

Looking on the outside will only fill you with anxiety. Comparing ourselves to what we wish we were, a downward spiral of self-loathing. You are not them, you are you and accepting yourself is so much better. We will only age, no one is stopping time here. There will always be someone younger than you.

But you are not old either; you are experienced. =)

When I think I want youth, I try to have a conversation with it and I’m violently shaken from that coma.  I don’t want to be in my 20s again because frankly, it sucked.

Not that my 30s are winning at life or anything but it's a vast improvement.
Feeling comfortable with yourself is unparalleled.  

I’ve always been attracted to the unusual spirit. The artists, the introverts, the writers, and thinkers. Smart was always better than pretty. Uniquely talented or sincerely kind also far better attributes. If you remember how they made you feel after meeting them and vaguely what they looked like, that’s a good sign. If they were not attracted to me at first it normally lasted longer and there was more depth in it.
One person told me my most attractive physicality was my voice, and that was my longest relationship.
Another person told me how naturally beautiful I was but only when I was covered in makeup and dressed to the nines. And another wanted me to always look like I did when we first met. These were the worst. Trying to keep up appearances for every encounter is exhausting. I'd much rather be an acquired taste. The past is over and hopefully, it's never coming back. Someone that listens to your stories and shares your passions goes deeper than the thin exterior of their perishable appearance.

Every birthday is a gift. Indulge in this beautiful mess of growing in your adventure. Finding beauty in the unseen will fill you with contentment to fight those insecurities. And you can be told this a million times in a million different ways and it will only get through after you’ve grown up.

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Because youth knows everything there is to know about nothing important.

All Natural