Midlife Crisis

day 965 Midlife Crisis, originally uploaded by Qathi.

YIP2009135 "Year in Pictures 2009" © 2009 Qathi Hart

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-life_crisis

Since 2006 when I broke my leg, I have been systematically chipping away at how I identify myself, identify with others and generally questioning my "identity". If I am not an outdoorsy snowboarding, motorcycle riding firedancer what am I? This process of reconciliation has been an immensely useful experience as I learn to adjust my abilities. Most recently I have found myself questioning how I present myself to the world. I really shouldn't care, and should just go on rocking out as per usual...with some semblance of grace and charm. But I do have to confess to having a bit of an identity crisis.

I am for the most part confident that I'm doing alright with my FTW attitude commanding that I'm judged on merit and performance (do-ocracy yo), not on my looks (thank the military for that one). However every once in a while something creeps in and says I'm too old for pink hair. I don't know where it comes from. But it's been happening a lot lately. In contrast though, I am perfectly content with being heavily tattooed and actively planning an expansion project. Getting my hands done last week was in part because I felt I've been on the planet long enough to get away with it.

The hardest part is just accepting that I'm getting older and that it's showing. I'm not fighting it, I'm not in denial, I am however startled. Every once in a while I look at myself and think "my god what's happened to me" and look for the joy, character and beauty in this face I see staring back at me. I practice leaving pictures unedited (with this one I didn't edit my age out), so that I have an accurate record of this phase of life. I don't mind the coming stages of life - I honestly didn't expect to live this long so it's a big win that I'm still here and all. I guess I feel like I'm in a weird limbo, I'm most definitely not a kid anymore - and I'm most definitely don't feel middle aged yet (or am I in denial). Man it's hard to let go of youth an beauty.

Anyway - minor ID episode. I'll get over it and continue rocking. Just needed to get it out of my head.