Why gray hair is a life lesson, and a metaphor for the best to come. Nice to meet you on my birthday, Steemit!

in #introduceyourself7 years ago (edited)

A proper presentation, finally. Nice to meet you, with my favorite picture of my travels.

Hanging out with street beggars in Turkey, also known as two beautiful and sweet women. These ladies were, respectively, 80-something and 90-something years old (they did not know their exact age).

The photo above represents all that I want to be when I grow up: adventurous, free, kind, mismatched, fearless.

I have been hanging out steemit for a couple of weeks now, but have not been properly introduced, so here it goes.

If you want a more flattering photo of me, maybe even one that can entertain a foot fetishist, you'll have to go a few months back, when I looked like this:

This photo was taken somewhere in Mexico, towards the beginning of a 7 month trip I started in January 2017.  While I traveled, I started cutting my hair one inch at a time.  With gray hair comes great responsibility.  Oh wait, I meant: with gray hair comes a loss of gray matter.  Therefore,  I can't remember exactly the city this photo was taken in.

Today, a few months after the above picture was taken, I look exactly like this:

Inseparable from my best friend: me! And attached to my tool, a guitar.

I love this grainy photo of me, because it represents who I am today: the good, the bad and the ugly.  Here I am: a woman who is shedding my hair, and with it the roles and expectations that I carried for so long about career, femininity, and aging.  I am stronger than ever, I am getting my priorities in order, and I decided to focus on what truly matters. 

I am 53 years old today (yes, it's my birthday).  My mother died at 49.  I am done waiting for the right time!  I want to live today, and do what is important to me now. Not "whenever I'll get to it."

Through my travels I learned to be more flexible, but also more intolerant of what is not good for me.

Today I focus on, in this order:

1. the people I love

It should go without saying that the people you love really are the nectar of our life.  Oops, I just said that.

2. music -

Learning to play a very difficult instrument like classical guitar after 50 years old is like planting a tree: it represents hope for the future

3. humanitarian causes

Although humans, including and especially myself, can be a real pain in the ***, they are still worth living and dying for

4. nature

Try living without it!

5. travel

Only through travel I feel almost at home. I am constantly looking for the feeling of being at home.  I have never found it ever since I left my native country of.....Italy. 

Hopefully I don't get a toothache when I travel.  That can be a very bad thing, but a great thing if you are sticking in a #freewrite exercise like @mariannewest suggests.  After all, she introduced me to steemit, so it is only fair that I render tribute to this amazing woman.

6. writing

My pen has been my friend for decades. Trying to make peace with a keyboard now.  At least my hands have no ink on it.

(Insomnia and Jet-Lag are wondrous things.  These two nagging friends made me write a book about my experience in Greece helping refugees.  The e-book made a bit of money, and I donated 100% of it to humanitarian causes. hanks Insomnia and Jet-Lag!)

For those that believe that success is working a stable job, making money, and having a prestigious career: I have never been more successful that now, living my dream, every day an adventure. I am making basically no money and having no career. I joyfully scrape other people’s toilets, tend to others’ gardens, do construction work, play out-of-tune songs, and cook meals for my new families of vagabonds from the world over. 

On those nights that I still can’t sleep out of sheer exhaustion, it is because I am too happy and have too many songs in my head. 

(Me learning to play the ukulele, the instrument formerly known as "toy," while waiting around at Mexican bus stations.)

But, enough about me.  Let's talk about you.  

Let's have a grandmotherly talk. 

Are you doing what truly calls you?  What are you waiting for?  You know, you won't live forever, dear.  Sometimes there is no more time. You or your loved one may die tomorrow.  For as much as you (and I) hate the idea, that is an absolute possibility.

Make every minute count, don't wait around.  My mother did not get a chance to do a lot of things and live a full life. 

When I turned 50, I picked up where she left off. I am not wasting more time.  I am making it matter!

Come along if you feel that happiness is the truth.

claudia

 



 

  



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Welcome aboard! I think you'll find yourself quite at home here. I loved your introduction. And I love that you're picking up where your mother left off. That's a really nice tribute to her. She would be proud of you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. My mother may have said, "oh honey, you really ought to work more."

She was old school.

Happy to 'meet' you! It is fantastic of you to help who you can when you are able to.
How wonderful that you can travel and enjoy your life while there is still gray matter left! :)

Thanks so much! I have to take advantage of all of my gray moments from now till.....the end.

I am more than a decade older than you and I too am living my dream. Who says old age means sitting in a rocker watching the grandchildren play?

Yes! Yes! Yes! Wonderful of you!!! What is your dream you are living? Le me catch sparkling crumbles of your dream.....

I am homesteading in Central America 500 meters from the Pacific ocean. I walk on the beach every day, usually with my son and dogs. Always warm here.

Fantastic!!!!! Proud of you!!!!

I want to visit you now!

Come anytime!

Ok. Packing! How is the mosquitoes/diseases situation down there right now? I don't want to vaccinate myself to death.

Are you sure you wrote this in 5 minutes? Lol. I found Waldo before toothache, all is good. Happy New Year 🎉

Not 5 minutes. As often, I overdid it. That's OK! Thanks for checking though!

It was a fun read. Keep it up.

Thank you so much!

The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @thisgirl to be original material and upvoted it!

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Thank you so much! I don't know what that does, but that's a cool sticker. ;-)

It up votes your post.

Very cool! Thanks!

what a great post!!!
I have to say while you look like a model in the first few photo's you look happiest in the one in the bus station. Someone I would like to sit for hours and talk to :D

I'm so happy your on Steemit and my you always follow your dreams and find a place that feels like home someday. hugs

Thanks so much. I was pretty happy already on the shoeless picture too. I am not that great at talking for hours, though. That's why I write or play guitar so much! ;-)
{hugs too}

I like the short hair.

Thank you. I have been trying to make peace with it.

welcome to steemit @thisgirl, best regards..
hopefully you feel at home here. 😊

What a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much!

Truth - we need to live every moment how we want to...

Here is a challenge and I hope to see you next week
Here are your weekend options

15 min 3 prompt exercise
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-12-30-2017-part-1-the-first-sentence

Or single prompt option
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-12-20-2017-single-prompt-option

Oh, post a link to your Amazon book...

Thank you. Hope to see you too. What if I just don't follow the rules or read the instructions, and take 3 hours for the 5 minute prompts and 1 minute for the 15 minute prompts? What will happen to me? :-0

Better start running.....just in case......

hahaha - you will be an even more brilliant writer lol

You know what they say, "Every silver lining has a touch of grey." :)

Welcome to Steemit! Pleased to meet you.

Thank you so much!

I never heard that say. Got to thing about it....

Nice to meet you too!

Welcome to Steemit!

Thank you Joelle!