I found two gray hairs last month: wiry, gray hairs that stood straight up in the air. I plucked them out and showed my husband. He replied, “Those came from your head?”
So I had to show him the new grays last week, and call him on the phone at work when I found another yesterday.
Over the past three or four years, I’ve tried to come to terms with myself. I’ve heard people say they’ve tried to come to terms with their past, their past behaviors, things that have happened to them, but rarely have I heard someone say she wanted to come to terms with herself.
I decided to come out to my friends. I’ve been open, exposed hidden fears, told the story of my past, shared the present.
So why would I ever consider dyeing my gray hairs?
It was a fleeting moment, a quick confession to my husband, who in return replied that he couldn’t see me maintaining a dyed hairdo.
I gave up using shampoo and conditioner almost two years ago. I buy my clothing secondhand or make it myself. And considering I spent most of my teenage years wearing safety pinned or duct taped clothing and found myself fashionable, I am far from gracing the pages of Elle magazine.
But what I do have is a strong sense of the person I am: what I mean to others, what I mean to myself, and how necessary it is for me to be open and honest in order to continue to grow.
I told my neighbor about the grays and she suggested a good dye job. In a fit of laughter, she said she couldn’t have any gray-headed neighbors. She knows me, though, and within minutes decided a dye job would be fake on me, and not just because it comes out of a bottle. In the six years we have known each other, she has grown to love me as the person I am: makeup free, shampoo free, barefoot, old green sweatpants wearing, Social Distortion blaring through open windows friend.
It might be years before I become completely gray. By next year I might be posting pictures of my family and people will question if I am my husband’s mother.
It will be me, though, gray or not.
