Getting old.

Recently I dyed some of my hair pink. It was something that I had been considering doing for a long time, but I had held back from actually doing it. In the past I have had blue hair and purple hair, and the usual gamut of blonde to black. But I had hesitated with dying my hair pink this time for one reason and one reason only; my age. 

There is no hiding from the fact that I am fast approaching forty. The last time I coloured my hair anything other than what is considered to be a natural colour was back in my twenties. But in my late twenties I had a bad experience with a hairdresser, and for a long time I was too scared to do anything to my resultant badly damaged hair. Then not doing anything to my hair became the norm, and I even stopped getting haircuts, and before I knew it I was only safely colouring the grey hair at my temples the same dark blonde as the rest of it, and my hair, like my midriff, was settling quite comfortably into middle-age.

Clearly I got a bee in my bonnet though, and one day a few weeks ago I went ahead and dyed my fringe pink. Dissatisfied with the overall result, I decided that I had to go a bit further and pinked up some of hair that falls around my face. Like a feature wall, more was, well, more it seemed. As I write this I have two-tone hair, pink through the front and sides, and the rest is dark blonde. I think it is pretty, and it is fun to have it like this for now. And I can honestly say that I don’t care what anyone else thinks of it. I did it for me, and I am enjoying looking at it. What anyone else thinks is a moot point.

This is the unexpected result of dying my hair pink; the realisation that I don’t care what anyone thinks of my appearance. I mentioned that my waistline is spreading, and that is no joke. I am seriously packing on the pounds.  Personally it troubles me, but only because I do not like to look at it myself, and I worry about my health, but not at all because I care one jot what other people think of it; which includes my husband.

That I have a husband is lovely, and I really enjoy being one half of a couple. Some days of course I want to cut him up into little pieces and bury them in the back yard under the pavers, but I am assured this is a variation of normal. He assures me that he does not feel similarly toward me, but then he has always been a smooth talker. He also assures me that he doesn’t mind what I look like, and he insists that he loves me for who I am. Nay, he says he adores me. Previously I have never really believed him, but as I get older and fatter and more eccentric I have to start taking his word for it.  He could totally have run away from me by now as I do not keep him chained up (honest), but he stays with me willingly, despite my advancing years and the addition of several more cats. And a dog. And my recent obsession with redecorating the house ‘not to his taste’…

Today it occurred to me that if he had been hit by a bus yesterday, I would be screwed. Here is this man who genuinely loves me for who I am. He insists I make him laugh, and there are other things I do for him which he appreciates IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.  

Yesterday some dating website profiles were visible in the side-bar of a news site I was reading, photos of thirty-something year old romantic hopefuls, with brief descriptions underneath. I read them and shuddered. They all mentioned their age and physical attributes, like these things mattered, and it quickly occurred to me that they did.

And it mattered to me too, once. I’d always been a sucker for a pretty face, and more still for pretty eyes. Except somewhere during my late twenties that changed as I began to realise it mattered so much more what was going on behind the eyes. Yeah, personality mattered to me to start with too, but I’d wanted the whole package, and thought I had found it. I hadn’t. 

When I hit t­­­­­­hirty I promptly divorced my alcoholic, pretty-eyed first husband and sought out a relationship with someone who had more than two brain cells left to rub together.  I am really very pleased with the resultant second husband, which has me panic stricken that something untoward will happen to him and I will be left alone, missing this man who does not approach our relationship from the shallow end, but instead seems to prefer me for my company, and not how I look hanging off his arm. I know from observation and experience that a girl couldn’t get this lucky twice.

I feel sad for us, the humans who place so much emphasis on appearance. It makes me sadder still to think that if I did have to jump back into the sea of dating again, for whatever reason, there are hundreds if not thousands of men who would not bother to try and date me solely because of what I look like. That perhaps there would only be a handful of men who would be interested in who I really am, this woman with too many cats and a dog and a funny accent from far away. This woman who doesn’t smile much and takes things way too seriously, but who is an absolute dickhead of the highest order who cannot be trusted not to insert a penis joke into polite conversation. 

Which means there are so many people out there who this is actually happening to. I mean, yeah, we know it of course, through our single friends who don’t want to be single. We look at them and we don’t understand why they are single, I mean, they are awesome, who wouldn’t date them? And yet they are not dating, because why? Is it because other single people are judging them on their age and weight and appearance? And I know in my heart that they are, and that just kills me. Because I know, as a fat, pink-haired, ageing cat-lady-with-a-dog, that if I was judged by those standards now, I would be left high and dry on the dating pile. 

But that I can tell you that these men would be SO MISSING OUT, and I mean that exactly how you think I do.