Hey girlie..
You are right..it’s not about the hair..
It’s about how society views women getting older…
Some cultures respect and admire women coming into their own..
And like you have said, your life journey has been filled with trials and tribulations, yet it feels like it counts for nothing, that no one is at your side to tell you that you are beautiful, that you matter, that you count…
I have watched you..I have seen you interact with those on this platform…you are filled with a wealth of knowledge, life experiences that give you wisdom beyond your years…
Your facial features may change, your body may fail you, but the words you speak will never crumble and fade away…beauty fades, but your essence will not…
There is a professor up here in Portland, OR..her name is Dr. Jenny Sasser..and she created the GEROPUNK project…
Libby Hinze "I will be created in the best of your image and you will be created in the best of mine. Joy in the quest."…geropunkproject.org
What this project does is CELEBRATES the older woman…
Part of their manifesto states..
To be a gero-punk is to bravely and critically reflect upon, interrogate, and create new ways of thinking about and experiencing the aging journey. A gero-punk resists normative aging ideology, and challenges others to do so as well, or at least to better understand the implications of normative aging ideology before they live by its rules. And as British gerontologist Simon Biggs entreats us, we resist “simple states of consciousness” about aging and later life, and choose, instead, to dwell in the messiness, the undeniable complexity, of deep human development and aging..
Also..
As gero-punks, we place our attention and awareness upon odd, unexpected, flummoxing, and contradictory aging experiences; we accept our own experiences and those of others as sacred and real, if yet (or perhaps always) unexplainable. We celebrate the way human life always finds a way to spill over the edges of our attempts to simplify, categorize, and contain its wildness..
To be a gero-punk is to find one’s tribe — human and non-human members included — and to gather the tribe close so as to travel together through the life course, “with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me” (to echo poet Stanley Kunitz)
These women don’t subscribe to the norm..they define beauty as they see it, not as others have defined it for them…
You are a fierce rebel woman..
Relish it..
