Embracing the gray.

There’s comes a time in a woman’s life when surrendering no longer conjures up a helpless image. Women who discover their sensuality midway through life know what I’m talking about. Surrender can be a good thing.

I decided to apply this principal to letting my hair be what it is, silver. Were it a dull gray, I might not be blogging about my latest bout with surrender but it isn’t. The women on my mother’s side gray well. When my follicles stopped producing chestnut brown, the color that grew in was silver not gray. My only problem with this color shift was that my follicles decided to do it in my early twenties. By my mid twenties, I’d figured out how to work the salt and peppered effect to my advantage. I was a grad student/psychotherapist wearing a teenager’s face. The silvery sprinkle added a dash to my credibility or so I thought which was why I resisted all temptation to dye it. Fast forward ten years and three kids later; no longer shackled with a teenager’s face, each time I saw my hairdresser, she begged me to color my hair. Eventually, I did.

In my mid forties, I tried reverting to my natural color but the ‘over the hill’ mood I was in needed the kind of boost silvery tresses couldn’t give so I gave up that surrender which pleased the new hairdresser in my life, a man named Eddie, who remains in my life today. Like most hairdressers, Eddie’s not keen on the color gray under any name.

A few months ago, I made up my mind. In a few years, I’ll hit my next big-O birthday. When I arrive, I want to be a silver haired woman who’s earned the respect silver haired women should get. Besides, I am sick and tired of dying my hair. Sick and tired of a stained scalp. Sick and tired of the weekly root touch ups I have to do between visits to Eddie who has now given me his blessing to be who I am. When I sat in his chair and announced my intention to finally come out once and for all, his only reply was “I think you can pull it off.” After ten years of listening to me whine about my eventual surrender to nature’s way, he may have decided it was time to surrender, too.

Unless you are willing to shave your head, the coming out process is slow. Eddie has me on a strict weave and cut schedule. When transformation is complete, I’ll post a new blog and include a photo. However, should the blog and photo not appear, remember, it is always a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Readers are invited to share thoughts about the maturing of one’s hair and all that it means in your life… or doesn’t.