Do I need to reinvent myself in order to change?

 Reinvention.  Why should I reinvent myself if this is who I am?  As I look into topics on teenage girls and self-esteem and helping them to live up to their full potential, I read over and over again about self acceptance and loving who you are.  If we want to be strong, independent, emotionally healthy woman, we should accept our gifts, our strengths as well as our weaknesses.  This is what self-esteem, and self-confidence is based on.  If this is what we are told, then why as we reach our mid-life years…our 40’s..why are there books and information about reinventing ourselves as if we weren’t good enough as we are?  Is reinvention the accurate term to be using?  Couldn’t we say we need to make some changes in our outlook? or maybe we need a make over?  That sounds so much less insulting.  As if who we are at our core hasn’t been “right” all these years, that now at 40 we need to be someone else.

I say all this half way joking, because I feel the need to reinvent as I near the big 4-0.  I feel like the first half my life is over, and though it was pretty darn good, I want the second half to be even better.  I talk with my friends about doing a head to toe make over to improve myself.  I think that is a better way of putting it.  I simply want to make some improvements in my life, not change it completely.  When I say head to toe, I really mean just that.  I start with the top of my head..or in other words my hair and work my way down until I have made whatever improvements I feel necessary at this time.  This can mean different things depending on who you are.  For example, I recently cut my short brown bob haircut off into a blonde highlighted pixie with long bangs.  A new look in the mirror, but really a new look at life.  It sounds cheesy to say a haircut can make that big of a difference, but every girl knows how good a haircut makes them feel.  Now think about it when it is a drastic change and you love it.   This leads to a good day!  I feel more positive, sassy and simply more like myself.  That is my real goal…to just do me.  I think all these years I kept trying to be a certain image.  Whether I was conscious of it or not, I always thought I should have long hair.  That’s what pretty girls have, and that is what makes them happy.  Really?  Did I honestly think this?  It is true.  Somewhere in my life, I got it stuck in my thick skull of mine that beauty and sex appeal comes from having long hair.  It has literally been an issue with me for as long as I can remember…just ask my husband, and my hair dresser.  I never like my hair.  I always want it different.  Because if my hair is different, better, longer, whatever, I would be better, different or whatever.  Makes no sense, I know, but that is how I have thought.  I think I have finally let that go.  At least partly.

Being comfortable in ones own skin is what I believe makes you beautiful, sexy and confident.  But how many people can actually say they feel this way.  We usually say things like I hate my thighs, or if my nails were longer, if I didn’t have that pooch in my belly, or something along those lines.  That sounds so ridiculous.  That’s not what would make us happy, it would just help us feel more comfortable in our skin.  But why don’t we?  This is us.  This is who we are.  Why can’t we just be ourselves and be proud?  I don’t really have any answers here, I’m just saying.

So the head to toe make over…my hair was the first to change.  I also went ahead and bought some new make up that would help me devote some more time to myself, which is always nice to do, and have been practicing new ways of applying it.  I do think I tend to get stuck in a rut of doing things, so trying something new ups my spirits as well.  I think that is what I am really trying to do.  Up my spirits.  Perhaps I am starting on the outside and working my way in, but at least I am starting.  I want to spend the rest of my life as happy as possible, and I think I need to be happy with me first.  This is where my life change is going to begin. Where is yours?