getting older

welcoming grey hair, wrinkles, and the stories they tell

My favorite white hair is the one growing right in front just left of the center where my hairline imperceptibly dips down. It stubbornly refuses to participate in any pulled back hairstyles I try and instead, prefers to stick up, as though announcing it’s arrival to the world with wild pride and abandon.

It reminds me of me.
The me I get to be when I commit to loving myself.
The me I was before I learned I should be anything less.
The me that will strive to emerge as long as there is breath in my body.

White hairs, crows feet, brow wrinkles… the records of how much I’ve lived, laughed, and worried is written into my very appearance.

The story goes that when I was quite young, maybe two- or three-years-old, I would march into a room and declare “I’m Theora Elizabeth Moench!” and then promptly turn around and march back out.