This is 44

Today I turn 44, tossing a wink and both middle fingers in the air toward society’s attempts to make aging women feel like we lose relevance and vitality with every added gray, pound, line, year. 

No matter what I do, try, or buy, I’ll never weigh what I did at 15. My face will never look as fresh as it did at 16. My hair will never be the uniform color it was at 18. 

I don’t want to look like I did at 15, 16, or 18. Every day I’m on this earth I become more myself. I sink deeper into her. I want to look like her too. 

Many people do not get the privilege of aging so I’m not walking back a second of it. I don’t want to erase the years I’ve lived that are written across this body which has carried me through this world so carefully since I was born a Tuesday child in March 1977 when the daffodils were up early in my Gamma’s yard. 

Youth is great. It is for trying on a bunch of things, thinking you are invincible and have all the time in the world, being wrong over and over again while thinking you’re right every time. But just like I wouldn’t go back to re-live it, I’m not wasting an iota of energy in my 40s chasing what I looked like 25 years ago. I’m not trading who I am now and all the wonderful things the years have brought me (or the wisdom when what the years brought was not too fucking wonderful) for unlined skin. I love getting older. The alternative is not attractive. 

I want to be healthy, hydrated, and moisturized. Like everyone, I have appearance preferences when it comes to myself. I have not used a hair dryer in going on 10 years. I wear what I’m comfortable in. I love how lipstick looks. I don’t do face makeup. I prefer solo walking. I want to always be strong enough to get up off the toilet without assistance in my old age. I like having my hair colored and my nails painted. I do those things for me. Whatever you do regarding your appearance and how your body functions, I hope you do it because it makes you feel good in your skin or provides you with a health benefit - not because you feel like you have to to be worthy of something in this life, or like the only beauty and relevance is beauty and relevance in proximity to youth, or like your appearance is more important than what’s in your head, heart, and soul. It’s not. 

I am a 100% believer that you look your best when you FEEL your best, regardless of what your actual appearance is at that time. I look my best 

When I’m sitting in a loose circle on the beach with people I love, nowhere to be but there, sun warm on my skin, head thrown back laughing

When I’m walking around taking pictures of things that catch my eye

When I’m watching my dogs run ahead of me on the beach

When I’m walking with my head down trolling for shells and other treasures

When I’m outside for Magic Hour

When I’m traveling and overwhelmed in the best way with what’s in front of and around me

When I’m alone in my car, windows down, sunroof open, music loud, singing like it’s my job, driving too fast

When I’m slunk down low in a chair on the porch unaware of anything but the book I’m reading 

When I’m saying what needs to be said or standing up for what is right

When I’m riding my bike on the boardwalk 

When I sit back immediately after painting my nails 

When it’s my birthday and I’m not working 

In most of my feeling best instances my hair is probably wild, there’s probably a coffee stain on my shirt, I definitely have dog hair all over me, I may or may not have showered, 98% of the time there are sunglasses. You get the picture. But I feel good.. I am happy. That looks better than anything I can slather on my face.

I could write for days about how the world ushers aging women toward the wings just as we come more into our own power and how society attempts to shrink women and reduce them to their appearance because if we spend our time, money, and mental energy fighting the inevitable aging process, we’ve got very little left to give to making true, lasting, substantive change to the state of women in the world because we’re too tired at the end of the day. If we used the same energy we have for unearthing wrinkle erasers toward a massive strike until we are a society that values women’s safety and autonomy more than protecting men’s fragility when challenged in a patriarchal system that supports violence, we might actually see a world where any woman anywhere can walk home at any time of day or night without fear because we  stopped the world until it was so. 

But it’s my birthday so I’ll spare you the rest of my feminist manifesto. 

Happy Monday! I’ll be off doing whatever the fuck I want. Beware the Ides of March. 

Standing still

This is my favorite tree in full, glorious bloom.

It's across from my house and I usually have 10 seconds a day to look at it as I dash to my car to make the train. On mornings when I'm extra rushed and digging for my keys, I forget to look up at all.

By the time I get home at the end of the day, I just want to get inside, change, do what needs doing. I forget to look.

Weekends? I’m at the shore. When I pack and unpack my car, I'm focused on other things. I forget to look.

With nothing but time here, now, I’ve been going out to look at it with my coffee every morning. I make it a point to look. I've forgotten how much joy I can derive from a few moments of standing still and looking.

Being in a hurry to go and get and do already seems so far away.

Going back to some version of that also seems far away, and in this corona life I find myself not being able to look more than a few days ahead.

Today, this morning, this moment...it’s right here. It's what we have. It's the only thing 100% true and knowable.

The fact that it’s not gray like it’s been for four days feels like the most amazing gift.

I can’t only think about what we’re losing and missing through all of this. I hope you think outside of that too. The slow down can have bright sides too.

Happy April. Stand still and look.

A version of this message originally appeared on instagram

How is this my life?

I've asked myself that question so many times with different emotional inflections in my inner voice. 

With exhaustion when things are too much. 

With disbelief when crazy shit happens.

With uncertainty in those really dark times when it seems like there is no light.

With rage when I have to deal with situations I don’t want to deal with. 

With disappointment when I’ve fucked something up and need to dig myself out of a hole. 

With frustration when things go wrong and set off a chain reaction of shit.

With resignation when there’s traffic late at night when there shouldn’t be. 

With gratitude for my framily. They make my whole life. 

With appreciation when something in the universe manifests exactly for me. 

With wonder when I realize that my life at the shore is actually my life. 

With a feeling of pure joy bubbling up in my chest when I think of how many things are so fucking good. 

The last four are my favorite. 

Happy birthday to Jen, my oldest friend. I've been friends with her since I was three. 

Like sands through the hourglass

A few things have been constants for me the past few years: the desire to see and experience; an insistence on not waiting for tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year to do something I want to do; the need to view myself in the context of what I am doing for others while still maintaining a safeguard on my self care; the feeling of a continual sinking into myself and becoming more and more myself than I've ever been, which is weird as I've always felt like someone who was fully and fiercely herself; and the knowledge that time is slipping through my fingers faster than I ever thought possible.

At the end of each year, I like to look back over it and think about it in relation to other years. On a personal level, part of me feels like I flew this year and part of me feels like I spent much of the year poised on the precipice of flying on to something new, getting my ducks in a row for whatever that might be. I'm not being intentionally vague. I feel change coming and I am one to always trust my gut. I don't know exactly how it will manifest itself, but I know it's always better to meet new opportunities with your house in order.

In comparison to 2015, this year I tried fewer new recipes, read more books (128 so far this year, 104 last year) and less magazines, watched less TV and went to the movies zero times. I was less productive but more centered, less organized but more open to operating differently. I worried less and lived in the moment more, became more cognizant of my aging dogs, accumulated more eye wrinkles, and felt more tied to the shore than I felt tied to my home.

This year reminded me that there are people who will think critically and connect the dots and people who won't; and people who fear everyone different from them and people who don't. It has upped my activism ante. It has shown me that I can coexist with people who think differently than I do if they can converse intelligently but that I don't gel well with fear mongering or stupidity. I spent a lot of 2016 being tired in my soul of a lot of things not directly related to politics or politicians - but more related to the reactions of people I personally know to things - we don't exist in a vacuum and at some point your viewpoints are who you are. And when someone shows me who they are, I believe them.

Personal experiences in 2016:  I saw a family of baboons scampering along the road in South Africa and watched the sun rise in African skies on safari; I tapped my feet to music in New Orleans; slept out for homeless youth; spent my 39th birthday largely unshowered but happy; joined Jana on The Armchair Librarians podcast even though I detest recording my voice (we're on hiatus until the new year, check out our old episodes here); lost a friend I've had since junior high; gained three new members of my aunt army - Natalia, MBD, and Libby; visited the Chinese Lantern Festival, Magic Gardens, and Liberty One Observation Deck in Philly; celebrated my mom's 60th birthday on the beach; attended Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel + Sting, Counting Crows, and Bruce Springsteen concerts; lost my Gamma; spent MFD's birthday in the butt of a large fake elephant; freaking MET Bruce Springsteen and Jodi Picoult at author events at the library; enjoyed girls weekend at the lake, one up the mountains and two at the shore; went tubing for the first and possibly the last time and went whale watching for the first of a few more times; celebrated my niece's first birthday; looked back on a year of shore house ownership; stood on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland with my Dad on his 60th birthday; heard bagpipes played in Scotland; proudly sent MFD off to deliver supplies to Standing Rock and soon after experienced the distress that is being many miles away when your partner has been injured; exchanged countless hilarious and WTF texts with my people; started wearing leggings; and so many other smaller moments.

Smaller in relation to those bigger plucked out and listed above, but smaller overall? No. Life is lived in the small moments, not the highlight reel. Mine is, anyway. It's in every grain of sand. I'm betting yours is too, which is why it pains me when people get caught up in the illusion that everyone else's life is more grand than theirs is. Bullshit. We all have a sun dappled existence with light and dark spots. I will venture to guess that people who appreciate it all, big and small, light and what they can bring forth from the dark, enjoy the ride more though. Something to think about.

I'm a sucker for the year's best nine on Instagram. Instagram is where I am most active on social media - follow me there!

Worldwide 2016 is viewed as a dumpster fire, and on many levels I agree. No year is all bad though, and even when it's more grind than glory, there is something salvageable. This year I am reminded that character is built in the trenches and not on the mountaintops and that we can all use some more character.

August 2017 will see me enter my seventh year of blogging in this space. Seven years (waiting for my best friend Laura to check my math). In a lot of ways, it feels like I've always been doing this. And my reasons for doing it haven't changed - I like to have a place to document my life and thoughts, whether zero people read it or 10 or 100 or you get the picture. It is as true of a reflection of my life as it can be without sharing shit that I don't personally want on the Internet. I am a what you see is what you get person both face to face and in this space. So while what appears here content-wise changes based on what's going on in my life and what I'm into at the time, one thing that doesn't change and that never will is that when you open this website, the real me is here. I appreciate you for reading. If you ever want to drop me a line, you can find me at lifeaccordingtosteph@gmail.com.

I'll catch you in 2017, eh? If you're going out tomorrow night, be safe. If you're driving don't drink and if you're drinking don't drive and all that jazz. If you are interested in mummery and what MFD does on New Year's Day, check back on January 1 for a post on where to find him on TV or streaming TV.