I’m not old—far from it—but the pressure of aging gracefully never seems to leave. My hips hurt, and my back hurts, and I’m losing hair, but I still have acne and a full face, like a pre-teen. I have hair on my body, but I shouldn’t, like a baby. I need to have a soft, high voice, and I do, but it gets loud sometimes, and even though that is childlike, it’s a bad childlike.
I don’t feel like a woman most of the time, but I look like one, a young one, a beautiful one, apparently. And I need to act like one, and be like one, and be one. And I need to never age like one.
“I look like a baby,” I say.
And people always respond, “You’ll love that in a few years.”
I want to age, and I don’t care if it’s graceful.
I never thought I’d make it this far, and I never thought I’d have dreams of a distant future. I want to age, and grow old, and never be ready to die like I once was. I want my hair to gray, to get crow’s feet around my eyes from smiling too much. I want sunspots to show that I’ve lived, like I’ve never lived before.
I’m not old, but I want to be. Not now, but I want to live these years as they come, soak them in like a sunny day, turn them into healthy skin and bones and whatever else I need to live long.
I want to live.
That’s difficult to say, or it used to be, but it’s true. So maybe aging doesn’t suck, but the societal expectations around it. I expected brittle bones and aching joints, but I didn’t expect the world around me to say, “Now do it with grace.”
Not real art-- I mean, I’m sure that’s fun too, but I have no abilities beyond stick figures, let’s face it.
Seriously though? I just started writing letters again-- real snail mail-- and holy crap it’s awesome. I thought I wouldn’t be able to have a full page of something to say, but actually I really can ramble on for two before I force myself to close.
Why don’t we do pen pals anymore? I love getting real mail, and letters are free, besides postage. I mean, I know with IM and Skype and everything we could easily talk every day anyways, but there’s still something fun and Jane Austen-esque about sending something old school (although I don’t write in cursive, because my handwriting isn’t that legible as it is).
What if there was a kind of roleplay where you and your rp buddy both put your playlists on shuffle and when it comes time to respond, you respond in accordance to whatever song you landed on.
Okay, so here are the rules to this zany project I am doing
1.) Only one photo a day unless a photography weekend/day where I am doing a large shoot.
2.) Only 10 minutes can be spent on editing an image.
3.) An image must be posted by 10 pm local time.
4.) The same subject can only be used 2 times in a row and 10 times total. The only exception is self-portraits
5.) The dates of this project will be October 1st, 2012 to October 1st, 2013
6.) If illness prohibits the taking of an image, enough images to make up for missed days must be posted, either from new shoots or old shoots from before the project.
