I had my first gray hair when I was 21 years old. At least… I noticed it at 21. It must have been there for a while as it hung about 7 inches from my forehead. I was horrified and immediately took it out and threw it in the trash. I threw it away along with the feeling that I was turning into a gray old woman. Yes, I had grown old and gray after just one fine hair. It wasn’t long before I started dyeing my hair. I wanted to make sure I never experienced another unpleasant and unexpected event like that ever again.
Being a vegetarian and concerned about the environment, I tried the natural versions first, like henna. Although the muddy substance was not toxic, the end result was the reddest hair she had ever seen. Feeling like a twin to Lucille Ball, I soon gave in to the local pharmacy and started trying out different shades to tone down the red. These toxic mixtures burned my sensitive scalp and leaving them on for the entire duration of the treatment was pure misery. The end result, however, was a beautiful deep auburn and golden brown shade. I thought to myself that once every six weeks was only worth enduring the painful discomfort. Strangers started to complement my look and I instantly felt like I was part of the world of glamorous hair dyes. I felt young and stylish and was hooked.
He believed that when women start to go gray, especially when they are young, they should dye their hair. It’s just what women do. You see, my dad started going gray at 19, and he let it be, while his two sisters never let him know, as I surmised from pictures of their different shades of red hair over the years.
Hundreds of products and years of professional appointments later, I found myself at 34 years old tired and losing hair. I was tired of the pain my head endured every 6 weeks and tired of using products that I knew weren’t good for the water I washed it in. As my fine hair started to look thinner, broken, and diseased, I realized how tired I was of hurting myself to hide my natural self. I started looking for women who choose to go gray and was inspired! I made the decision to begin the embarrassing process of letting my roots grow.
After following the root repair ritual for a good 3 or 4 months, and wearing a lot of hats, on my 35th birthday I went to my salon and told them to cut off all the hair that had color in it, what if they would ? please try to make it look good. I will never forget the look on my face as I studied this new look in the mirror. Now that the color and long hair were gone, I felt lost and regretful. Instead of seeing this as an empowering moment, all I could see was my large patches of gray amid the mouse-like dark brown that was my natural self. The loss of my long, sleek blonde streaked hair was more painful than I was prepared for. “I am an ugly and very ugly old woman,” the voice in my head told me. I couldn’t believe that I was destined to be such a drab, old, ugly woman at 35 years old. I tried my best not to cry, but by the time I left the room and went back to my car, I couldn’t stop. the flow of tears.
To ease my sadness, I decided to go shopping at my favorite store for used treasures. To my complete delight, I found a beautiful pair of long, dangling, sparkling earrings with rhinestones in all the colors of the rainbow falling to my shoulders. I thought if my hair was going to be short and ugly, my earrings would be long and shiny. Strangely, three years later, my entire earring collection is filled with long, super sparkly, colorful earrings. It is the signature of the new me.
I’d love to tell you that after a few weeks I got used to the gray hair, but I wouldn’t be honest. The truth is, it took almost a year before I was finally comfortable with being gray on most days. There were the embarrassing days when I would go to the salon to get my hair cut and they would practically beg me to let them dye my gray hair. There was also the day my mother, who is injured with hardly any gray hair at her 60s, said that she looked older than her with my gray hair. She was joking, of course, but she felt terrible.
It took me two years before I looked at my long gray hair and honestly saw the beauty of what it was like to allow myself to be. I have realized, over time, that the truth is beautiful. I’m gray. I eat organic food, I buy natural cleansers, I choose natural shampoo, and it’s only honest and true for me, that I don’t put chemicals on my head. I am not against the right to color, I just wanted to live my life knowing that it is not a necessity.
With acceptance and love for my own honest appearance, I began to see the world outside of me, also differently. What is beautiful for me now is to see women proud to show off their changing bodies, faces and hair color. It’s nice to know that we are not spring chickens. We are heading towards the end of summer. And with our wisdom gained from living our honest experiences, our bodies are displaying this wisdom to the world. Maybe at 21, I wasn’t ready to show the world, or myself, that I would ever be 35 or 40. Now I know that getting older isn’t about getting older, it’s about getting older. Growth is the key word. And honestly, for me, growing up is beautiful.
Copyright 2008 by Rain Fordyce
