Getting older.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

It is going to get so much harder, getting or should I say looking older.

I have always resisted editing my photos because it is hard enough getting older without looking back at an image of yourself and seeing a representation of yourself but better than you actually were. It is hard enough as it is looking back and seeing the true, younger, version. I cannot imagine how hard it will be once AI tweaks every aspect of your face and body.

I see my self as a darkhaired, dark-eyed, strong-featured woman, but over the last year or so I have lightened my hair to blend in the grey, and my eyes have become more hazel anyway and this is more noticeable against my changing hair tones. This already doesn’t reflect my inner vision.

Don’t get me wrong – I am less bothered about the ageing per se instead more concerned about the disparity between my inner world and the outer world.

I wish I could go back to my early forties and take the decision to stop dyeing my hair and let the silver strands shine through in their full-length glory. But I didn’t. I chose to touch up my roots every four weeks for a decade more until they really needed doing fortnightly; I lived with a permanent silver strip at my roots until I decided enough was enough. And wow, what a palaver this is proving to be. I’m really (absolutely really) lucky to have a daughter who is a hairdresser and doesn’t charge me salon prices – I just pay for the products – and she has taken me through this graduated stage. My feed on Instagram was full for a time of women having the most beautiful colours to manage this transition, but without divulging the speed at which these fade. Salon beautiful hair – for 6 washes if you are lucky.

I watched a You Tube video made by an American Lawyer who gave up on the blending approach to going grey for this very reason – but then she experienced so much negativity from her colleagues, males and females, for refusing to dye her hair. Eventually, “time catches up with you and you just look like an older person who dyes their hair.” 

I want to be a champion of women – I am a champion of women – and that means that women have every right to choose how they present themselves – without comment or unsolicited opinion from anyone else. And I choose to look as I do. All I am saying is that it is hard, and my inner version of me does not always recognise the outer version of me, and that is harder still.

This isn’t just the fifties – this happens at various ages. Frequently so in fact. But perhaps this is the first that I am really finding difficult.