Embracing Age

I haven’t colored my hair in 7 years.

I was 35 and I started to feel fake. My daughters were reaching the end of childhood and I was trying to teach them about self love and self acceptance, and at the same time I was faced with coloring my grays every few weeks to cover up who I was becoming. Now, finishing up my 42nd year around the sun, also my sixth 7th year cycle, I can look back at the last 7 years and thank myself for embracing the change. Embracing the uncomfortable parts of life—-the end of things, the unknowns, the end of a season.

Way back when I had time to read books, I read Women’s Bodies Women’s Wisdom by Christine Northrup, a well known doctor in the field of gynecology. It remains one of the most influential books of my life, and it’s where I first learned of the biological changes that happens in a women’s body every 7 years. A big part of this change is our how our hormones change every seven years affecting pretty much everything in our lives—from physical to our phycological health—and hence, the common saying that we shed our skin every 7 years. She goes on to explain that if we don’t evolve into the next phase of our lives we become dis-eased, restless, and thats when disease can set in. Ever since learning of the 7 year cycles, I see them as seasons of life. Like seasons of a garden. There is a beginning, middle, and end. While they look different and are filled with different challenges and blooms, per se, the structure of the season remains predictable. The beginning feels uncertain and filled with hard work, the middle is filled with receiving and harvesting, and the end is bittersweet. Knowing the rhythm of nature is the most comforting feeling in my bones.

This month I turn 43 and start a new 7 year cycle.

The beginning of a new season and I do feel like I’ve shed my skin and have become a new person. I’m filled with excitement and nervous energy for the season ahead—pretty much exactly how every spring feels but this one feels big for me. 7 years ago I was sitting on a charter school board highly involved in my kids education, we were searching for farmland and a house, and I was enjoying my young family to the fullest as a full time mom.

Now I’m a wife and mom of a family with teenagers. I’m a business owner who unknowingly was learning the skills I need now over the last decade—understanding the soil, learning the market, learning to collaborate with people, getting my feet under me again. Going into this next season of my life, I feel different. I feel more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve learned that my children have their own destinies and just as I want them to follow their individual path, I must follow mine.

I’ve hired people on the farm, we have a growing book of business where people, and other businesses, are relying on us, which feels light and heavy at the same time. I’m more confident than ever before in who I am, but somewhere in the calendar, I missed the appointment where I completely changed how I looked. It feels awfully similar to going out into the garden one morning and feeling like it changed overnight. Months go by and days are consumed with planting, weeding, feeding, debudding, than finally you wake up and go out into your garden and you see the first bloom, or the first fruit. It’s a magical feeling and one that rewards dedication but always comes as a surprise.

Strictly from a physical sense, I’m not sure my 35 year old self would have signed up to look like my 42 year old self—similar to how your fall gardening self feels different than your spring gardening self. But from a mental, emotional, and spiritual sense—I would have signed up anyday all the way!

I recently took this self portrait on the right, during Covid stay-at-home orders, to compare it with a photo from 7 years ago where I’m posing the same way. Its pretty clear I’m aging. Its not just my hair that is changing, but also my skin, my hands, my muscle tone, as well as my thoughts, my feelings, my perspectives. It’s not photoshopped on purpose. When I first saw the picture, I sighed. Then I forced myself to smile and say—yes, keep living Gina. You are doing it!

I know its hard to get yourself to that place of thinking, but gardening has taught me that not only is every season beautiful, but every stage of the bloom is worthy time in the vase. If I only enjoyed flowers while they were in the tight cracked bud stage, I would miss them fully opening showing their true essence. The vignette of colors as they age, the shapes of their stems as they bend, and the grace of their petals as they let go would all be forgotten. Those are when I love flowers the most.

When we age, we start to do the same things the flowers do. We are more flexible in our thinking, our hair and skin are multiple shades of color, and we are finally able to let go of the fear of judgement. Aging is scary because it acknowledges the inevitable, that yes, the season we are in now will eventually come to an end. By trying to cover up our grays, or poke our wrinkles, it feels like we are moving counterculture of nature. By embracing the season of life we are in, we may move a little quicker towards our dreams, we might talk to the ones we love a little softer, we might forgive a little easier, and we might reach in a little deeper and out a little further. It’s those harvests that I had to learn how to receive, and I thank my silver hair, and ever evolving gardens, for getting my attention and reminding me that this season, too, is beautiful.

Love,

Gina