It happens suddenly. You step towards the mirror face still heat flushed from spending the last 15 minutes drying your hair. You brush, tweak, smooth and then BAM. WTF is that? Panicked, heart racing, you lunge forward towards the mirror wishing it had instant magnifying powers because surely what you think you just saw, was just a tiny figment of your imagination or brand new highlights from yesterday’s few minutes in the sun. Sadly, neither are the case…it is there…kinky, wiry, shiny and white. You have a gray hair.
The questions then start to flurry through your mind…When did this happen? Has anyone else seen it? Are there more? Do I pluck it? How many more are there? How old am I again? When did my mom go gray?
Just when you thought you could not freak out anymore, you lean further forward nose grazing the mirror and begin filtering through your hair like a Chimpanzee looking for fleas on his mate. Then you see them, a full army for sure…clustered in some areas, singularly mocking you in others. How did you miss this? Has all the years of highlights and dying really masked the truth from you?
You step back a moment, glance down at the sink basin, start to breath again and begin to analyze your life to figure out just when or what did this to you. You are clearly not old enough, it had to be the 3 kids, billions of hours worked, stress of running a business…and having a life. Maybe you could have slowed down a bit. The inevitable may have been delayed for a year or two. In all reality though, this day was going to come….eventually. You now stamp an “Old” label on your forehead.
This happened to me about a year ago. I decided to stop highlighting and dying my hair. It grows insanely fast, up to an inch a month and the upkeep was near impossible for me. So I went O’natural. After a couple of months the truth began to sit in and my Army of Gray was apparent. They were there and they were mocking me. I faced the fact that I would either have to go dying my hair monthly to keep them hidden or just embrace my new badges of age, life and wisdom (got to find some good in this). I chose to deal with them for as long as possible, hoping that I will be one of those lucky ladies that goes gray gracefully. Trust me I have almost caved a thousand times. Some months they taunt me…laughing at me as loud as possible, others I am just too busy to notice.
One day you may find me snuggled back up into a salon seat unleashing my battle against age, but today I sit here at just over a year since my last hair appointment challenging myself to love them for what they are. There is no promise that I can handle it as it gets more and more apparent. The days that I am not carded anymore I am sure are just around the corner and truth is, I just might not go gray gracefully.
So here is to the rest of the Silver Foxess’ (made that up) that embrace their gray and deflect the label of ‘Old’. Men have this one way too easy.
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