Kinda Frida Feel Photo -Photo credit: Marguerite Du Bois

I am sure you all know by now that I recently celebrated my birthday.

A BIG one!

At least, that is the way it feels.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t feel 60 years old.

I feel like me.

Just the way I always have.

Having been on the planet for six decades,  seems more serious and somehow more substantial than previous milestones.

All in the mind, I know!  I know it is in my scripts, beliefs and self-talk and society’s perceptions and myths.

According to some French writer (please note the respectful way I refer to this ahm… id … individual) I am all shrivelled up and not fit for romance and carnal shenanigans anymore and haven’t been for many, many years.

I’ve got news for him …

Enough said.

What I love about the me that I am now, is that I read this man’s opinion on face book and instead of feeling outrage and anger, I felt laughter bubbling up in me.

My comment was:  ” How ridiculous!”

I meant it.

Yes, I know it smacks of patriarchy, ageism and embodies all the negative, demeaning and other equally derogatory concepts that our society uses to sell stuff and to exclude those of us who are considered to have reached our sell-by dates.

The thing is just – it has absolutely nothing to do with me. I don’t believe that nonsense.  Not even for a millisecond.

I am me.

I am not the number of years I have been around or even the body I am in.

Yes, I have grey hair – I happen to love my hair and the fact that it is natural.  And quite a few people have told me that they love it too and have mumbled something about wishing they had the courage to go grey!

Ok, no well fine.

I don’t believe my best years are over.

Oh, contraire, my darlings.

You aint seen nothing yet.

When I was younger and my hair was a fashionable auburn shade, I bought into a lot of society’s dictates about how I should and shouldn’t be.

I followed the script.

Dutifully .

I desperately wanted to be accepted and loved and admired.

Somewhere along the line, I totally got the wrong end of the stick.

I admit it.

I thought others had to love, admire and accept me.

For the longest time, I thought that if I just did what was expected and “did unto others”,  I would eventually arrive at this place where all was hunky dory and I was loved.

So I was a good girl and sensible and conformed and did all that jazz.

For years!

Gradually though, it began to dawn on me that maybe,  just maybe, this loving thing was an inside job.

So I began to follow my heart in big things and small!  I got on the back of a motorbike and did other equally outrageous things.

I embraced the notion that I am unique (as we all are!) and that the secret is simple.

I love me.

Just as I am.

I now know that the world would be less colourful, less loving, less wise, less compassionate and less beautiful if I were not in it.

We are all one of a kind.

Together we form a beautiful, dynamic, ever-changing field of Love and all we are called to be,  is ourselves!

Wildly, passionately, unapologetically!

Just be our beloved selves!