Lisa Marie White

I discovered the mouthpieces of my water bottles were filled with mold, the race organizers were assholes, and I was tired and needed to pee.

It's a common dynamic: Casual conversation among women often defaults into shared commiseration and subtle self-deprecation. "How are you?" is abbreviated into "What's hard/wrong," and sharing strength and joy is subconsciously reigned in to avoid ruffled feathers and social ostracization.

I always expected my intro to grey hair would be filled with a kind of resigned sadness, if not despair. Spoiler alert: It wasn't.

The key to moving on came years later, having been within my reach the entire time: simply acknowledging that I am a sexual being.