This is going to sound self-indulgent and shallow, but there is a lot more than it seems.
When I lost weight (which I never thought would happen) I found I looked - not younger, but better. (had to lose the weight, my doctor threatened me with gastric bypass). Able to consider being at least a bit of a fashionista. But my hair looked wrong. I have dark eyebrows (almost black) but greying hair. I'd been dyeing my hair and although I did a good job, found that the colours would rapidly fade to a brownish orange. Not a great look. My hair had thinned so I cut it shorter. Again, it took a lot of experimentation to look OK. With a dark, solid colour and my straight hair trying to fall into a centre part, I was looking like Professor Snape!
Now, I know appearance is not something you should focus on and try to look like a kid, to avoid ageing. Not at all. But if you feel bleah, you feel worse (and geriatric). I tend to feel better if I look better. It doesn't have to be perfect, just the best I can do with what I have got.
So I found a good hairdresser. She stopped me using home dyes which made my hair look orange. She got me using one of those purple shampoos which take the orange out. It's something that is an issue with my hair, not necessarily yours. She ten cut my hair in a style I can look after, to eliminate the Professor Snape look. Then (because I had an upcoming wedding to justify it) I got her to do foils in my hair. It looked a lot better but couldn't be perfect, because she had to go over my home-baked efforts with permanent home dye.
However, over time she has managed to put in streaks which include growing-out grey, with other colours in there too. She's brilliant. It means the home dyes have been growing out and now you can't see any tide-line. The streaks aren't bleached, they're my natural grey. So they're not yellow in any way.
Now, I used to love the reddish hair look. But my skin tone is too dark really, it doesn't look right on me. I've learned that it makes me look older, ironically. Now although my hair has a lot more natural grey, I look better. I only go to get my hair done every three months or so, because there is no tide line really.
I'm still me. But I feel better about myself and it has me looking around at my life thinking, "OK, what else can I work on? How can I improve my life and attitudes in other areas?"
When I went for my prosthesis and special bra fitting, the fitter said (about the swimsuit and my bikini line), "At least you won't have to worry about dark hair, being so naturally fair in hair colour."
I said, "It's not natural. If you look closely, it's not blonde, just carefully concealed grey."
Her response was, "Wow! Who did it? I want her number!"
I've had disfiguring surgical scars since I was 20, serious health problems for just as long, and perhaps my attitude to life has been coloured by not being "normal" for so long. But there is so much to do in life, so many ways to look at yourself and your place in things, that growing old no longer bothers me. When I got my first bad scars, even a one-piece swimsuit wouldn't hide them. So I decided I may as well wear a bikini if the scars were going to be obvious anyway. Back then the scars were thick, ugly and red. People used to ask, so I told them it was from a shark bite. I used to have fun making up stories, although I would tell the truth in the end (kidney surgery). But life is to be lived, every minute. Make the most of it all. Find something you love, and do it. For you. If it turns out to be something for others too, so much the better. But there is no more time for guilt or looking back (unless you're writing memoirs!)
If you want ideas, ask. Pick and choose anything that appeals, and play with the ideas. YOU decide. Don't think that at 60, life is over. At 60, my great aunt had over 40 years left of active, fulfilling life. At 100 she hit the TV talk circuit and began to give speeches to local schools about how the world has changed in so many ways. Imagine that? A new career at 100!
It is never too late to try something new. Take up a university post-graduate course. If you have to go back to high school first, don't let that stop you. Chances are, though, there are fast ways in.
I was heading on a good career path with promotion prospects when disability shot that down and I found myself sidelined and discredited. I was medically retired at 33 years old and became seriously depressed. My life was over, I was of no more use to the human race. Then I became a counsellor for a charity (connected to my disability). I was given training. I self-taught computer skills, learning how to use a desktop publishing program that came with our second hand computer. I offered to help with the charity news sheet and over the next 8 years turned it into a medical journal with a circulation increased ten-fold. I did a lot of fund-raising, learning even more. Advertising. I did media appearances.
Then I found myself squeezed out of the charity - politically, things were shifting. But by now I had learned a lot and also learned how to change direction without it bothering me. I got a job working in publishing of a professional medical journal, learning even more (and also passing on some of my knowledge to the publisher).
Then I saw the writing on the wall, at about the same time my liver began to fail and my doctor sent me home to bed. Time to change direction in a major way. So I looked through ads in the local paper - a writing group. When I was allowed out of bed, I went along. And found my new direction.
I now help people get published, I have taught creative writing in many venues and have won competitions. I've published my own work also, and been published by others. I didn't start this until I was over 40.
Whenever you think, "I can't begin a new direction at 60," Google Grandma Moses.
by the way, I'm 55 and I've just painted my first oil painting. It's a landscape. husband even recognised the place from my painting.
Give it a go.
Marg
. Anyone have any suggestions on how to look at aging in a positive way? My therapist is sick and out until October. I'm going to have to find another one. I love her a lot, but she's sick often. We have a lot of history together, but I really need to establish a relationship with another therapist who is in better health.
(That was a joke.) 
