GREY HAIR

I’ve announced it. No birthday party for me this year. At least, I won’t be organising one. My friends are of course more than welcome to throw me a surprise party (preferably with some strippers and lots of whipped cream handy), as long as everybody jumps up yelling “surprise” and then start complimenting me on how good I look for being 29.

What a total nightmare it is to look in the mirror these days. For starters I have gained weight. A lot of weight. Admittedly, all my own fault, and now that I am starting to feel better (more in control I suppose is what it is), I can do something about it. Hopefully quite a lot. In a month’s time A. comes for a long weekend, and it would be nice for him to get me in a slightly better shape again. A month later I have to attend our annual company party, looking dazzling for all our clients. And there are other reasons of course. I am actually hiding from some friends. I postpone outings to the pub and find excuses not to appear on webcam.

But weight is not the only reason the mirror has cracks. My hair! My –what is supposed to be- pride and joy! I saw greys… and not just one that I can quickly pull out and pretend it was never there. Oh oh, what a disaster. This is physical, undeniable proof that I am getting older. Me! Getting older!! Somebody must be having a joke…

To make it worse, A. mentioned I was getting a bit older, and therefore less resilient against staying up all night, drinking a whole bottle of wine. He tried to comfort me by saying that there are good things about getting older. So I challenged him and asked what exactly could possibly be so good about that. Other than the supposedly getting wiser, he himself could not think up anything. And as we all know, wisdom has not reached me yet!

I did however find the most endearing poem about this very subject, called “Warning” by Jenny Joseph. It is better known as “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple”. It basically describes this woman looking forward to her old age, during which she can let go, do crazy things and behave outrageously. Now that I call a pro for old age! But, do I really need to wait some more decades for this? Am I in fact not crazy enough, and behave weird? And yes, I do already wear purple.

Knowing yourself is the start of all wisdom. This is one of my favorite sayings of both my parents. And rightly so I believe. It is so incredibly hard to be completely objective and honest about yourself.

7words is a method of getting to the core of your personality, getting to understand yourself a little. I do love a good personality test! And MJ had taken this test about a year ago already. The result showed that I have difficulties saying “no”, but otherwise I am a sociable person.
The website tells you to take the test regularly. You can see how you change, hopefully progress. And so, before putting the link up on my blog, I took it again. And guess… nothing changed. Still I am told that I am a free-spirit, somebody with good social skills who can make friends etc. But on the other hand I am a pushover, totally unable to say no or be assertive. Or, put in other words: I was, and still am the perfect slut!