THE TEN YEAR CHALLENGE

My alternate title for this post could also be Why I Am Not Participating in a Deep Learning Experiment on Aging. I have noticed people participating in a Ten Year Challenge on social media the last few days. For those of you who don’t know what this challenge is, it is a photo challenge. You post a picture of yourself from ten years ago next to a picture of yourself today. It’s nice and I will admit that I enjoy seeing other people’s pictures of then and now. I will aslo admit that I have been tempted to participate and post my own then and now pictures. Then I remember where I was ten years ago and I think that just surviving and being here and now on the other side of death is the challenge.

I doubt very seriously that I ever took a picture of myself during the month of January ten years ago. If I did, the woman in that picture would probably have a weird awkward smile plastered on her face and her eyes filled with terror. The picture might even be blurry because I’m pretty sure I vibrated with panic and tension. For those who knew me before this moment, I did not look like the person they remembered because I was also in the process of growing my hair out to be donated to charity. Really, the ten-years-ago me wasn’t me. I don’t know who it was, maybe an alternate reality version of myself, but it wasn’t me. When it was finally time to cut off all that hair, I posted a picture of the new haircut and Robin commented something about finally getting our Cindy back. Everyone at work was shocked by the drastic short hair because they didn’t know me before when I had mostly always had short hair. Almost a year later, I resembled my old self. A little skinnier. Terror in the eyes replaced with sadness, but there is a smile on my face.

I’ve always put on a brave face.

I don’t know if I look older now. I bought one of those face roller things and I have been routinely rolling my face every evening. It is a placebo, but I feel like I look younger than I did this time last year. There is more gray in my hair. A lot more gray now. Natural highlights. I like it. I’m about the same size and shape I was ten years ago. Actually, I am smaller now. Ten years ago to this date, I was still in a panic state of trying to save a life and hadn’t just yet started to lose weight. That came later when bottles of wine and sleeves of Saltines became routine meals. The photographic comparison between ten-years-ago-me and now-me would show little differences. This is because the real Ten Year Challenge cannot be compared in photographs. I am no longer terrified, but that terror is easily triggered. I am still sad, but maybe less sad (?). I question that because I didn’t have time ten years ago today to be sad. I’m not more confident than I was ten years ago, but I’m not less confident. I’ve had to fight to get my confidence level back where it was ten years ago, which was probably on the level of somewhat confident.

I am younger now than I was then for a number reasons. Some good and some bad. All unrepresentable with photography.