Tonight’s ZerotoHero challenge is to respond or revisit our most popular posts.  I’ve been blogging off and on (mostly off) since 2007.  My all-time most popular post in terms of visits was one I wrote about my 47th birthday.  Titled “The Black Wreath on my Door,” I was grieving my youth, lamenting my slouching toward 50.  Well, turning 50 has come and gone and I haven’t figured out a way to lift my chin back to its 18-year-old look without spending a fortune.  I’ve since written about the annoying effects of gravity, the hopelessness of ever being gorgeous, and applauded a fellow blogger’s fuck-you to menopause.

I don’t know why the “Black Wreath” post is my most popular, except that the visits come mainly from Google searches.  I find that oddly comforting — this idea that at least 600 other people in the world have thought of putting a black wreath on their doors.  Or at least wondered what a black wreath means.  If they still hadn’t found the answer they were looking for in the first two pages of their Google search, visitors found my post on the third page.

Aging still baffles me.  I can’t figure out if I’m too old to wear a  short skirt, or if leggings are inappropriate for work, or if no one really cares one way or another because I’m becoming more invisible.  I keep waiting for that epiphany that older women celebrate, when you just say “fuck it” to everything and do what you want.  When does that happen?

[In my “letting go of gorgeousness” rant, I implied that I somehow understood that now everything is about the “inside” of me.  I lied.  I still don’t get it.  I am an unreliable narrator.]

As for wreaths, I finally took down my Christmas wreath last month.  In its place is a row of dried herbs attached to a stick.  I suppose I’m warding off something evil.  Or maybe I’m welcoming sardonic wit.

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