From the Editor-In-Chief

Breaking up is hard to do. Hervé was the first to go, followed by Alexander McQueen. And then, on the night of my 47th birthday, standing in front of a full-length mirror surveying myself in a white lace fast-fashion number that had served me well on several GNOs and trips to Las Vegas, I finally reckoned with the fact that I'm not Forever 21. It wasn't that the dress didn't fit; it just no longer fit. I could hear my daughter's voice in my head saying, "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." Sigh.

Feeling (and wearing) Forever 21 with my daughter at a press event in Vegas a few years ago.

Following the wardrobe purge, I turned to my tresses. Perhaps it was the barrage of Real Housewives promos on television, depicting cat-fighting, war-painted women all morphing into the same look courtesy of face fillers and hair extensions that tipped the scales, but all of a sudden, my hair, which had gradually fallen outside the palette of "natural" colors, seemed ripe for change. Before COVID, Whitney, my incredibly talented master stylist at Joseph's Salon & Spa, had to employ an increasingly intensive set of steps to maintain the "milky" blonde look I loved, requiring hours in the salon every four weeks.

The COVID shutdown of salons in the spring marked the longest time I went without coloring my hair in more than three decades. As time marched on, I stopped noticing my dark roots, and by the time Joseph's reopened, I was ready for a drastic change. Because I love surprises, I gave Whitney free rein to pick a new color for me. Fortified by my new look, I walked out of the salon with a spring in my step, happy with my decision to embrace middle age with a curtsey instead of needlessly fighting it with a sucker punch.

In recent months I’ve learned that it’s not always blondes who have more fun.

My path to unconditional self-acceptance has been a long and winding road. While there are still plenty of roadblocks, one of the benefits of getting older is the ability to prioritize what and who matters. Even though I'm increasingly grabbing for my cheaters to read the fine print, what has come into clear focus (especially during this time when so many things we'd taken for granted have been taken away), is that life is short and that the time is now to make the most of every moment.

For many of us, the start of the new year offers the promise of a clean slate. My wish for each of you is that you achieve whatever goals or dreams you've set for yourself and to cut yourself some slack if you fall short. After all, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Life is a journey, not a destination."

Bridget Williams, Editor-In-Chief bridget@slmag.net