The Castle

What is a fifty-nine year old woman supposed to look like? I asked Google this morning and I got some pictures of Christie Brinkley and Maria Shriver. Along with some photos of grandma-ish looking women with white hair. I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be in full grandma mode — of course, I’ll never be an actual grandma — or whether I should still be gearing up for bathing suit season. The last nine or ten months have been very hard on me. I feel like I look older and part of me no longer wants to be young at all.

I’m posting a picture that Max took of me in Edinburgh in March, wrestling with The Happy Haggis who hangs out near The Castle. He was a nice haggis and we stuffed a couple of dollars in his mouth. I suppose I look young enough here, and I take after my mother in the fact that she didn’t go grey until her seventies or eighties. I guess that’s a good thing.

Part of me wishes my hair would turn grey or even white, however. That the experience of losing Sarah would just completely mark me, that there would be a clear before-and-after that would not only be prevalent in my own mind, but would be absolutely visible to everyone. “Her hair turned white overnight.” “She became an old woman that day.” It’s like what Teddy Roosevelt wrote in his diary on the day when both his mother and wife died: “The light has gone out of my life.”

But other times I get scared at this way of thinking, torturing myself that when Sarah “comes back,” she won’t be able to recognize me. Who is this old lady and where is my mom? I need to keep myself together and recognizable for her return. I already have a new car, new furniture in the house. I can’t make too many changes or she’ll be confused and scared. She has to know she’s still our highest priority no matter what.