I’m a late bloomer. Really late. Kind of wrinkly late. Gray hair late. Getting Social Security late. 

I bloomed once with everybody else my age. Basically, it was hell. Except for looking passable in a bikini, those blooming years were a colossal waste of time. I spent time getting permanents to make my straight hair curly. I spent time obsessing over dolts. I spent time being ashamed of my anger, my sexual appetites, and my bad parenting skills. I spent time, mostly all of my twenties, wondering if I should be this or that. I spent time working for peanuts in jobs I hated. I bounced in and out of relationships that needed work. Lots and lots of work. I spent years with stomach pains because I repressed my fear and anger. I got myself into of all manner of awful situations and then felt relief that I had somehow muddled through. 

I almost caused a bar fight when I used my cigarette to back off a drunk jerk who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I threatened another with a pot of hot coffee when I was waiting on him, and he said something awful, thinking he would make his girlfriend laugh. She didn’t. I held the pot over his crotch, and he was scared. I was pretty angry a lot of the time, during those so-called blooming years. I drank too much and loved myself not enough. 

I moved past blooming to a slightly more settled life. I eventually stumbled into a career and then worked until I didn’t have to anymore. 

I didn’t know that an old woman could bloom again. That she could be at her most resplendent self. That her beauty would take many forms and that she would feel joy on a daily basis. That she could burn with desire hotter than she’d ever known. No one ever told me that there is probably a lot I should forget, and not to sweat the mislaid glasses. No one told me my straight hair in its old age would wave all on its own, wild and free.