BRAVERY

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael took me to work on Tuesday because my car was having the brakes looked at and no one had the energy to shuffle cars around. It was supposed to rain and was a little drizzly that morning or I would have taken Valerie. But this was also a good opportunity for us to go vote early. We could do this easily on our way home after he picked me up from work. I made sure to pack my ballot cheat-sheets because our primaries have a lot of amendments on it this time. More so than people. That’s why it is important to vote in primaries or to just VOTE! Michael and I are really fortunate to have an early polling center within walking distance to our house. We are all for making it easier for people to vote. Mail-in ballots. Early voting centers. Voting as a national holiday. Penalties for businesses who do not allow time off for voting to their employees. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the gist.

We went and voted early to take one thing of our list of tasks for next week and make our lives easier. After we scanned in our ballots and selected stickers, I took the obligatory “I voted” selfie and posted to the gram. Later, I was looking at this picture and I could not get past the amount of gray that I see in my hair. When I look in the mirror at home in our dimly lit bathroom, I don’t see that much gray. I have a lovely streak near my bangs on the right but the rest looks like scattered white in a sea of brown. The vote selfie was taken outside in direct sunlight and I suppose all of that sunlight highlights my grays.

And I am pleased by this.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine told me about being in an elevator with another woman around our age. This woman was probably a mean girl in high school, but she looked at my friend and said “You’re so brave for not coloring the gray out of your hair.” The statement shocked my friend and she didn’t have time to recover with a rebuttal before the elevator reached her floor. Of course, we’ve all spent a length of time coming up with responses that could have been said to that woman and eventually it became something we joke about. My immediate response when my friend told us all this story was that I wanted to march right down to that woman’s office and give her a talking to, but then I thought about her choice to use the word ‘brave’. While I know this woman and what I type next is probably not true about her but a nice idea, it is possible that she really truly believes this to be an act of bravery. Like the idea of allowing herself to just age is something that is scary.

At this point in my life, my age long battle with the patriarchal construct of women’s beauty standards is no longer an act of bravery. I don’t even think I’m in the battle any more. I just give zero fucks about those standards and have leaned into all the ways this body has never fit the mold for those constructs. That’s the true act of bravery. Being brave enough to love yourself as you are in a landscape built by a patriarchal society that preaches on the commandments of beauty standards that tell you, that you as yourself at this weight and this age, are unlovable probably does look remarkable to someone who still allows those standards to define them. I’m grateful for each and every one of those gray hairs on my head (and other places..wink wink) because each one has led me to this place of so called bravery.

Happy Friday to one and all. Remember: Fuck the patriarchy and go vote!