There was a huge part of me that feared not being sexually attractive for so long. This is the same reason I starved myself, wore certain clothing….I deluded myself into thinking I wasn’t worth anything to anybody except for one thing.
The fact that the fear has crept into mind again is scary, not the white hair.
I’ve spent so much time over the past few years trying to accept myself as I am…behaviors, looks, attitude, beliefs. To think something could come along and so quickly make me feel insecure as not only a woman, but as a person, makes me question if I have really accomplished all I felt I had.
My husband said I need to embrace this, wrap myself around it. Every part of me knows that he will love me and want me regardless. Knowing this leads me to wonder to whom I’m afraid I’ll no longer be sexually attractive.
I think when you love someone, things just gloss over. My husband’s bald head has never been an issue for me. I’ve never looked at him differently. I said early on that this was because I’ve always found bald men attractive but I really think it’s because of whom he is. He is always confident, never questions what he looks like. Being small his entire life, he spent a large part of his youth wanting to be ‘bigger’. One day he understood that will never happen, so he strives to be healthy. After ten years of marriage, that is what I find attractive about him more than anything else. He is.
I don’t look at other women or men and see things like weight or hair growth/color and get turned off of whom they are as people. I’m not looking to take up with them sexually so it doesn’t matter.
So why do I immediately ‘know’ others will look at me with disdain for choosing not to dye? For me, this isn’t about not looking young. It’s about being scared others will immediately shut down and not give me the opportunity to show the beauty I have inside.
One of my favorite quotes, which will one day be a tattoo on my forearm, is a quote by Frank O’Hara:
“It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so…”
I think that is my greatest fear right now, not being given the opportunity to show whom I am.
I think a huge part of why people have been attracted to me over the past few years is because I’ve come out as open and honest as I can possibly be. My past can’t be undone, and I don’t want it to be.
*The rest of Frank O’s quote.
“It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It’s like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.”
