Solstice...

The snowflakes fell softly on her face. The big, fat, fluffy, ones. Christmas snow a few days early. 

Solstice was her favorite. Winter solstice to be precise. Summer solstice seemed like a celebration of excess. So much daylight. Such a long day. Who needed that much sunshine? Darkness was necessary. Resting. Cozy moments sharing warmth. Darkness was important. 

A dark cold day was the most romantic of days. August was the month with the most births. Nine months after there was more dark than light to the day. More quiet than noise. More warm fires and snuggly blankets. 

The snow continued to come down. 

The world entering that in-between time that happens after a big snowfall. Where everything is muffled. Where time seems to pass at a different rate. Where even the light is new. The world looks different under a blanket of snow. It sounds different. It covers a lot of things we don't want to look at. A walk down a familiar path is suddenly new and something to pay close attention to. 

The snowflakes kept falling. 

What would the Juul feast be like this year? Would the bonfires even light under this heavy snow? Or would this be the year that all of the celebrations were inside? A yule log laid on the hearth. Heat filling their homes. The celebrations adding light and warmth where there was none. 

She liked that too. 

Make your celebration. Add winter berries and greenery. Trees with lights. Candles to electric. Ornaments. Pine cones to glass balls to collectible action figures. She wasn't one to judge. 

The snow fell softly. 

Deep in her chest she felt the rise and fall of the little ones. Sleeping soundly in their cozy burrows. Waiting until the thaw. She would hold them close all winter. Though she did wonder what they would think of seeing their world not green and lush as they expected but white and cold. Would they react with joy or with terror? If she could wake them only for a day and whisper to them that it was all okay she would. But instead she held them gently and whispered lullabies in their ears. 

Winter solstice was her favorite. She knew most thought spring meant new life, but she knew it started here. In the cold and the dark. Those who were awake adding their own light and warmth to the mix. 

The snow kept falling on her face.

Looking Ahead...

Brent and I were talking last night about me wrapping up my goals for 2023. He said I'd have to bump my numbers for 2024 on a few things. 

I told him, Oh no. I'm not setting goals for 2024. It's a year of just doing the stuff I do without having numbers attached. 

He asked what the over under was on how long I'd make it without setting goals. 

Which is sort of a goal so I declined to name the odds. 

But he's right. The closer we get to the end of the year the weirder it is for me not to be sitting down and pencilling out my numbers. And looking back at my goal setting for 2023 the things that were more esoteric, I didn't actually do. I stuck with the things that were solid, do this this many times. Which is how my brain works. And also part of why I want to try something different next year. 

I tend to prioritize the things I've attached numbers to. Even though none of it really means anything to anyone else but me. There is no one counting on me writing 4 blogs a week, one of them fiction. There is no one who cares if I read 12 self help books. There is no one who is depending on me reading the Fantastic Stranglings pick. It's all just stuff I do to keep my brain busy and focused. 

But the things that I would like to do that don't have hard numbers attached tend to get shunted off to the side. Later, I'll get to them later. But later is filled with something that has a goal number attached to it. So...

So next year I really want to see what happens when I don't do that. When I just say that workouts, writing and reading are things I do because I do them, but they aren't attached to a number of times I have to do them. Which means if I want to spend the day working on something else there is nothing standing in my way. It's all fine.

The last time I tried this approach was 2020 and well, that was a bitch of a year. I'm not saying that not setting goals caused a worldwide pandemic because the universe did not know how to handle a free wheeling me but...

Seriously though it didn't really give me any sort of idea as to how to just be in the world with the goal thing put aside. It was such a messed up year and nothing made sense. And thank goodness I had no goals because I wouldn't have hit any of them and that would have just added another layer of angst on to a lousy time.

But 2024 will be better! Or at least I hope it will. And if things start going south I will set some mid year goals so fast it will make your head spin!

Help Yourself #12...One Last Chance!

This month's self help book was Untamed by Glennon Doyle, it is a combination self help and biography so it was going to be a nice easy finish for the year checking two boxes with one book. Except I picked up the Barbra Streisand biography (not an easy finish, holy cow it was long) so I didn't need the two in one, but I already had it on the TBR pile so it still became the book. 

Now...

I did not read her two other books. I haven't read her blogs. I don't listen to her podcast. I was aware of her when she ran Momestry (I think I'm spelling that right?) and I was, of course, even more aware of her when CHRISTIAN MOM BLOGGER LEAVES HUSBAND FOR ABBY WAMBACH was all over our feeds. I still wasn't interested in her. Except to be slightly disgusted at the, of course the Christian mom pushing for that "traditional" thing was a closeted lesbian. Of course she was. And then there was one little blurb that made me roll my eyes way back into my head, and it was that she didn't think of herself as queer it was just Abby, not women in general. Okay, fine, I mean, that is a way of describing yourself, I don't have a preference for gender, I have a preference for people. But it came across as more that she couldn't bear being called a lesbian. Even though, according to her and I didn't go research it, she was a progressive Christian so wasn't anti LGBTQ+, just was just really traditional.

So you can see she's not a natural choice for me. 

But...

During the Women's World Cup this year she was really active on Threads and not a lot of people were active on Threads at that point. And she was posting these little "pulled from life" comments about trying to learn about soccer and falling in love with soccer over the tournament. Then there was a post about Abby learning Taylor Swift songs so when they took their daughters to the concert it would become a great family core memory for them. Seeing both of them singing and dancing along with them. I thought it was sweet and I thought okay, I'll give her new book a try. 

AND...

It wasn't my thing. Not really. She talked about being an addict and a bulimic, which I guess she does in all of her writing, and I get it, those things shape you. She talked about her first marriage faltering when she found out about his infidelity. Which I guess her whole second book was about rebuilding their marriage after finding out about his infidelity. And then she talked about leaving him for Abby, after meeting Abby once. They met briefly at a book conference. They started talking via email. The second time they physically saw each other they slept together and made plans to live together forever. Which is the most lesbian thing that ever lesbianed, but okay, Glennon you aren't. 

Though she does reinvent her story in this book to always sort of kind of knowing there was something missing and fighting against it a little but then again maybe not maybe it was just Abby and...

And that's fine. I get it. Being raised religious and not conforming to what you are taught is really hard and takes a lot to get your head wrapped around. 

But it wasn't just that. It was really repetitive and derivative. Like any great nuggets of advice that were in there were recycled from other people. Like she was doing a book report on a Brene Brown book. Though she was rephrasing and adding extra sentences like a kid copying their term paper from wikipedia..

And then the final straw for me...back to the whole reason why I decided to read her book and give her a chance...the whole learning about soccer and falling in love with the game this past summer during World Cup? 

Well...her daughter plays on an elite travelling club and has for about three years. Abby and Glennon's ex-husband (they all co-parent and still do things together, very healthy) play in the same adult league and have games weekly. AND she's part owner of a NWSL team. There is no fucking way someone who describes herself as a control freak who researches everything would have a daughter, wife, ex-husband who all play and own a team and not know anything about soccer. They were cute stories, but they weren't real. 

And if I'm reading a bio/self help book the main thing it needs to be is real, if I find out it's not real I'm going to discount everything else as well. 

So what would I have gotten out of it in my 20s? 

Nothing. I would never have read it. In my early 20s I would have looked at her history and passed. There wasn't a lot of room for grace while I was dealing with my own stuff. I didn't trust addicts. I didn't have warm feelings about the church. I absolutely would have wanted nothing to do with someone who was living with a woman but couldn't own the fact that that meant she was at least bisexual. I would have passed.

I should have passed this time, just not anything there for me...

...that I haven't already read in a Brene Brown book. 

The Horrific and the Hilarious...

Tried to write this on Wednesday but couldn't sit at the computer and do it. Yesterday I felt like I really shouldn't try again, wanted to really rest my arm still. Today, I wrote a fiction piece and still feel okay so I'm going to give it a try before I forget the funny parts. 

Okay, now that we've got the timeline established...

Horrific is probably an overstatement but holy shit that sucks doesn't flow as well.

I told you that they kept telling me it was going to hurt and that I was fine with that. I have a high threshold and sometimes things hurt. I started to get nervous when the nurse told me they'd be sending me home with pain pills. Oh. That level of hurt. Okay, that's different. 

So I was a little stressed but still. It gets good results, I've been limited in what I can do for months now. I'm ready to be better. Deep breath. 

The first thing they do is take some blood. Some blood. The nurse asked me if I get woozy at the sight of blood or needles, Nope. I'm good. Then she, and her assistant, plopped down the supplies. Two GIANT tubes for my blood. Umm...how much blood? Like, that looks like a lot. But okay. Then they take the blood away to the spinner to separate the platelets and the plasma. Which is the first place where things might go wrong, you have to get enough platelets for the process to work. So fingers crossed I've got a good platelet count.

She went over the discharge instructions while my blood was spinning. Which was good because I wanted to know why I couldn't workout. I'm 55. If I don't keep moving, I can't keep moving. And it was what I thought at first. General instructions for knees and hips were on there too. So they can't do shit for weeks and weeks but I can work out (gently) as soon as I feel like I can tolerate it. No big arm swings, no weight lifting until I'm through with physical therapy, but I can walk within a few days and I can run as long as I don't get arm crazy next week. Whew!

Then Dr. Bettencourt came in and was talking to me about the procedure as he scanned my arm to see exactly where the platelets would be injected. He told me that it was okay if I didn't like him at the end. That I could call him any name I wanted to and that was okay. He would be using a little numbing on the surface so the needle itself wouldn't sting so much, but that they can't numb the area they are working on because if they do the platelets won't stick, so it hurts. No way around it. 

I told him that it was okay. That sometimes in life things just suck and there is nothing to be done about it but get through. He was like...wow. That's true. I mean I know I'm telling you that about your arm but that's just good life lessons. That's good stuff. Thank you. 

So I've given my doctor the end of a blog wrap up lesson so that's nice. 

Then as he was scanning I hear a "hunh..." 

Well that's not what I want to hear. 

It looks like from this angle that I have a tear in my ligament. So it's not just a strain, it's an actual tear. 

Does that mean this isn't the right treatment? 

It doesn't. In fact this is the exact right treatment for a partial tear. What he's hunhing about is that I should be in a lot more pain than I am. But... I have a high threshold. It hurts but I've dealt with it. 

So now I'm feeling even more okay about the treatment. It's the right one for a tear. I've been dealing with the pain from a tear better than he would expect so I should be able to deal with the pain from the treatment well too, is what I was thinking. 

And then...

Okay, so the treatment is unlike anything I have ever been through. It's no joke painful. Similar to the uterine biopsy but takes longer. I did crack up the medical team. Their only patient to mix "oh my goodness" with "oh holy shit that hurts" I am unique. I tried every distancing trick in my book. I tried reading. I tried pretending to be someplace else. I tried breathing through it. I tried leaning in to it. Oh holy shit. When he used the needle to move the tear around and get the platelets all around it...that was the worst. Right up to the point where the needle went against the radial head and...wow. The kind of pain that makes you break out in sweat. 

Now the thing with most treatments like that as soon as the needle is out, the injection stops or the cutting stops you get some relief. Not with this. As soon as the needle was out Dr. Bettencourt left to write up some notes and the nurse and the assistant stayed with me because...

I was going to vomit or pass out. Not sure which was coming first but it was coming. The room got very small as my vision did the tunnel thing. They brought me an ice pack for the back of my neck and a juice box and told me that it was normal and that I was doing great. It did not feel great. I ended up not passing out and not vomiting but it was a close call on both things.

And then I was fine. Like it passed and I was remarkably fine. Great. Left to go get my prescription filled. 

I drove myself to the appointment. I had asked if I could and was told that it would be fine. Which ended up being good because Brent had a stomach virus earlier this week and it would have not been great for him to have to drive me. So I needed to drive to Walgreens and then home. At 5 PM through Beaverton. Oh my gosh...what a mistake. 

The traffic was horrible and my elbow started to throb when I was miles away from being done. I kept repeating to myself that I was fine. That I only had to wait a little bit then I could take a pain pill and just crash. It would be fine. Because traffic was so bad I decided to go to the Walgreens closest to the house since it would be right turn in and out instead of trying to turn left against traffic. We don't usually use that Walgreens because it's kind of a mess. But surely it would be fine for a quick fill.

Surely. 

I finally get there and the line is about 10 deep. Texted Brent to let him know where I was, how long the line was, and not to expect me for awhile still. Finally get up to the counter and the tech says, "Just to let you know we are short staffed and closing early today at 6 so we probably won't get to this until tomorrow." 

My mind raced to "I can't, just can't. I can't get into the car again and drive all the way back to the other Walgreens don't make me..." My face crumpled and I tried to hold it together but the tears were in my eyes right away. "Oh please. Is these anyway you can fill this tonight? I just...." and the panic, tears and let's face it middle aged white lady of the situation all worked in my favor as she checked with the pharmacist and they filled my prescription right then. Faster than I had even expected walking in. 

If I embarrassed I might have been embarrassed about tearing up in front of a stranger but it was totally involuntary and apparently exactly the right thing to do in that situation. 

Got my pills, got home, and whew...

So that was the horrible parts. Ready for the hilarious bits? Or at least to me?

When the doctor came in to do the procedure he asked me what kind of music I liked. 

Anything but opera.

Okay. Who has their phones ready? 

His nurse pulls out her phone. What do you want to hear? 

He asks me again for input.

Whatever helps you concentrate. 

Metallica it is!

I'm fine with that. 

His nurse says, How about the Eagles station?

Oh you know my heart. That's perfect. He checks with me again that the Eagles will be fine. 

She sets up the Eagles station to play on Spotify and the first few notes of a song start and I just start laughing. Well, maybe not this one. 

It was Don't Fear the Reaper. 

Oh no! Let's skip that one! 

I'm fine. I actually like the song, I just think it's funny. They are both probably too young to recognize it just yet.

(Nurse) Oh no! I know it. I was raised with all of this. My parents are big in to these older songs.

So the painful part of the procedure has already started.

Another song starts and it's yet again not an Eagles song. 

Dr. Bettencourt asks if they've just got an Eagles greatest hits channel.

The nurse finds it. 

And...

Somebody's gonna hurt someone...before the night is through...

Oh my gosh. And yes, it was true. Somebody did. 

The other part was after everything was done and they were waiting with me to get over the shock part Dr. Bettencourt came back in with his peace offering. He hands me a cup and there is a cookie in it. 

I thank him and ask if it's a macaron.

Oh no! It's the world's best cookie from Trader Joe's. It's an oreo dipped in dark chocolate with that cream ganache over it. So good!

So I thank him and tell him I appreciate the gesture but I can't eat wheat. 

He snatches it away from me super fast. I wasn't trying to kill you! Just hurt you a little!

Ha!

So yeah, it was horrible and hilarious. 

I feel better today than I did yesterday which was better than the day before. I did take the pain pills the first day and took one before bed last night as well. It's still fairly sore and now we are in the hard part of the recovery where I feel like I should be doing more to help Brent since he's been doing everything but I shouldn't do a lot because I really do want this to work and part of my job to ensure that is to not fuck up the work within the first week. 

So I'm back off to sit on my ass with my arm on it's own cute little pillow and rest. Next week will start physical therapy so you get to hear me whine about that. 

It's the gift that keeps on giving! 

Support Group...

She was starting to think maybe this was a mistake. First off she was busy. Taking time out for this group made the rest of her day even harder to manage. And really her issues weren't the same as theirs. She thought they would be but...

"...busiest night of the year coming up and now I have to deal with this bullshit."

"Language."

"Sorry, Mrs. Goody Two Shoes."

"I've asked you to please call me Gretta."

"Why? I mean that's your name. Why don't you want us to use it?"

"This isn't about me, this is about you. Stop trying to deflect."

"Okay, I'm just saying that I have my busiest night coming and now she wants to have these serious discussions. I don't have time."

"You don't have time? Buddy, you control time. You can bend it, pause it, wrap it, how can you not have time to talk to the Mrs about your relationship?"

"You wouldn't understand, Krampy, you've never had a relationship."

"I've had a lot of relationships. And I can tell you if I was lucky enough to be married to an angel like Mrs. Claus I for sure wouldn't cheat on her."

"Oh god...go cry in your sack of sticks. You have no idea the temptation I am faced with every year."

"Tell me about it."

Every eye turned toward the new speaker, "What? You all haven't ever heard of Furries? I'm huge with them. And a lot of them are really interested in my carrot if you know what I mean."

"Eew. Don't just don't."

"Oh it's fine when the big man over there talks about his candy cane but I'm out of line somehow? This is discriminatory holiday treatment."

The facilitator, Mrs. Goody Two Shoes, realized she was losing control of the group. Again. "You've been quiet. Would you like to share anything today?"

She looked around the room. Would she? "I just thought maybe this would be more about our unique issues than bragging about body counts."

Krampus perked up, "Oh! Are were going to talk about that?"

"Not that kind of body count, Krampy, she's talking about sex partners."

"Oh...well that's disappointing."

"Okay, well what sort of issues were you struggling with?"

"Well, I mean I know my stuff is different. For one I work every night. Not just once a year. No offense to you all, but it's never ending. And then...well just last week I had to call the police, again, after showing up to do my collecting only to find a torture chamber with a psycho pulling out his victims teeth."

"You called the police? And they call me a snitch..."

She looked up on the shelf where the voice came from. "First of all, yeah, I called the police. Secondly there is a big difference between telling the police where a serial killer is hiding and telling him," She pointed at Santa, "that Johnny took an extra cookie from the jar."

"It's still snitching..."

"And that's your thing right? I mean, I have a guess as to how Mrs. Claus found out about his extra cookies."

"Wait...what? YOU told her?"

"Oh come on, Eartha Kitt wrote a song about it! You seriously think she found out from me?"

"Eartha Kitt didn't write it, she just sang it. It was written by Joan Javits and Paul Springer. Oh they were quite the the pair..."

"Okay, back to the Tooth Fairy. What I'm hearing is that you are overwhelmed. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I really am. I haven't have a day off in...well ever. And between the higher cost of collections and the odd serial killer here and there it's just, well it's taking a toll. I was hoping for some tips on how you all manage."

"Have you ever thought about just not doing it one night?"

"Do you know how bad it is when I miss a pick up? And I have missed some. Either the tooth is lost too late in the day to get on my schedule or somebody just forgets to let me know. I can feel the disappointment coming across the world at me the next morning. I can feel the little bit of magic that seeps away from that child. It's a huge responsibility."

"Collecting teeth is a huge responsibility?"

"No, not the collecting, the magic. You all get them when they are very little. From birth you get to be in stories and games and movies. They believe in you and what you do from the start. I come in at the end. When they are first starting to doubt. To think, maybe the world isn't full of magic. Maybe it's all my folks. And if I miss a night? If they wake up and that tooth is still under their pillow? Well, then they know they were right. It's all a sham. And I feel the hit."

"It seems like you are taking on a lot."

"I'm not taking it on. It's already on. You all get the fun and the magic and the wink and nod that as they age they get to help keep you alive for their younger siblings. I get to introduce them to the wonderful world of commerce. You give me your literal body parts and I'll leave you a small token. This is your life. Blood, sweat and tears for a few dollars every week. And sometimes you'll do your part and get screwed out of the reward part. It's a lot. It's too much."

"Well, maybe that's what you need to change? You have a job. You do your job. The rest isn't yours to bear. Yes, we all have to face when they lose the magic, but that's not on you. You didn't do it. It's the way the world works. And there are always those that continue to believe. I mean, not to encourage them, but Santa and the Easter Bunny find a lot of adults who really believe." 

"I'm not sure if I should thank you or be really mad about that image."

"Yeah, sorry."

"As far as time off goes, maybe you can work with them to give you some extra time. Like on Easter and Christmas Eve you could all work together to pause your collections? It's not much, but it's something. Maybe even see if your time adjusting powers can be used to freeze everyone else while you take a little break? Is that a thing you could do?"

She thought about it. "I don't know. I haven't considered it. But that could be an option. I mean, if they can use it for...well what they do then maybe?"

"Great. That's all we can do, right? Is consider new ideas. Anyone else have something they want to talk about today?"

"Can we get back to that body count thing?"

"Krampy!"

Today!

In two hours I have the PRP treatment on my elbow. I'm still a little stressed about it but hopeful it won't be too terrible. Sara's husband had it for his shoulder and he did really well with recovery so if a guy can do it, I surely can. 😉(I just discovered I can insert emoticons in my blog. Now my writing can become even less formal!)

We added a twist to my recovery though. Yesterday afternoon Brent came down with a stomach bug. We are hoping it's the 24 hour variety. He feels much better than he did, the fever seems to have gone away and he's been able to eat a couple of things. So fingers crossed he's better. And that I don't come down with it within the next few hours. If I have to cancel I would have a really hard time convincing myself to reschedule and not just take it as the universe telling me not to get it done. Which Brent said he would mock me over, but I can totally see making that decision.

We have been planning on me being completely out of commission for a couple of days at least but I told him not to worry, if he still felt lousy I would just run the house single handedly. SINGLE HANDEDLY!

He didn't find it nearly as amusing as I did. But I stand by my choice.

I did a few chores this morning that required two arms (even if one is wonky it's at least usable right now) and put on my Bad Ass socks and now I'm ready. 

See?

Yes, I used my socks as a pep talk. I do what I can...

I also jogged for the last time for the next six weeks. It's been interesting being a slow jogger. I've always said if you see me running you better start because something is chasing me. I've felt like my knees, achilles tendon, and wonky toe wouldn't be able to handle running so I haven't. But then Tommy Rivs said you don't have to move any faster to run, just lift your feet up. And that sort of blew my mind. I've always thought of running as moving fast enough that you HAVE to lift both feet off the ground. Not that it was some sort of choice. And he was right. I am jogging at the same pace that I walk but not any faster. I always thought I had to go much faster. And I couldn't do it. But this...this I seem to be able to do. 

And it's given me something different to focus on since I couldn't lift weights. Doing longer and longer stretches of jogging vs. walking. And today I jogged at 3.8 with bursts of 4.4 for 25 minutes straight. Nice. I can walk as fast as 5 mph but I haven't tried that with the jogging yet. It was a work up to it thing. Time first then speed. 

But of course all of that will go away and I will be starting from scratch in February when I can start running again. But that's okay, I know how to do it now. And hopefully I'll be lifting weights again so it won't be the end all be all focus of my workouts. 

The challenge now, because I had to move the procedure by a month, is that we are thinking about going to Hawaii the end of February and I'm not sure I'll be able to kayak by then. Not just the kayaking itself, because I could leave most of the work to Brent, but if we snorkel off of our kayaks hoisting myself back into the boat could be a challenge. I have a lot to hoist and one arm not being able to help would be no bueno. 

But as Brent says, that's a high class problem to have. Oh no...I'll just have to snorkel off the beach. 

So there you go. I am going through with it. I have my PT scheduled to start next week. My friend Shay explained why I can't use the treadmill even to walk for the next few weeks. I'm ready to go. Still sweaty palms nervous about it, but ready. 

Also why I'm writing this today. One so you knew I didn't chicken out even though it sure sounded like I was ready to chicken out. And two because I imagine I won't feel like writing for a few days. So this gives me three nonfiction for the week and just leaves a fiction piece out there. And who knows? If I go ahead and take the pain pills it might be a doozy of a fiction piece! 

Beacon in the Dark...

Or something like that.

Saturday night at the Teddy Bear Toss a friend of mine found me by my hair. 

Sold out, crowded game. He knew sort of the area where our seats were but had just told his wife "I'm not sure how I'm going to spot her...oh never mind. There she is."

My hair was a bright red homing target. 

Now to be fair I did just get it colored Saturday morning so it was at its absolute brightest but it was still really funny. 

The week before the checker at Fred Meyer asked me if it was natural. Oh, honey, no. And anybody who has this color hair who tries to tell you that it is is lying.

My hair is a red not seen in nature. Unless I'm on a hike...

It started out as a very subtle red. I had posted about how I used to change it up during the fall. There was a box dye that I used, the wash in wash out type. Lasts a few weeks and fades away to nothing. And I was getting tired of how dull my hair was looking. I like my natural color. Or colors I should say, there are a lot of them in there. And I like the grays that are coming in. They are very silver and pretty. But aging and the kink to the gray were making my hair not as shiny as it used to be (the reason my hair has always been so shiny, or part anyway, is because of how straight it is, straight hair is shinier than curly hair). 

So, anyway, Sara finally convinced me to do a color wash to my hair. It would add that red and that shine and if I didn't like it, it would just fade out. 

So I did.

And nobody noticed. 

It was really subtle. I could see it. And especially in the sun you could see it. But it was just a really subtle picking up of the natural red I already had. So she got out the dye and went darker. 

And then darker again.

And darker still until finally someone said something about the change. 

Then I think we went a few shades darker just for fun. 

During the pandemic I couldn't get it colored for awhile, and the red started to fade, but it just went to paler red. A more natural looking red, actually. It faded nicely. Which is always a worry with red dyed hair. It often doesn't stick around. Fades quickly and it sometimes not very attractively. But mine doesn't fade too badly, it gets lighter, but it's still a pretty deep red even the day before it's time to get it refreshed. During the pandemic it just faded more than that to a more rust colored red. 

And even though my hair stopped growing during the pandemic and I didn't have the large root line that a lot of people did I decided to try going back to my natural color. Sara did some finagling to bring it closer to my browns and...I hated it. 

I went two cycles with it and still hated it. 

I don't think women need to dye their hair to look younger or to cover gray. If all of my hair would go gray I would switch to that. Like I said my gray is silver and I really like it. There just isn't enough of it. So I have a mix of brown (browns really, a few shades of brown), black, blonde, red and gray. And when I tried going back to that mix it just didn't look like who I was expecting in the mirror. Which is hilarious considering I had had red hair full time for like 4 years by that point versus the almost 50 with brown. 

But the red is me. 

So maybe it is my natural color. As unnatural as it is. 

And it helps you to find me in a crowd.