Gray Hair? Yikes!

I love going to the salon to get my hair done.  I really love it.  I love the feeling of leaving with a fresh cut and color.  I love spending time with my stylist and chatting endlessly about fun things.  I love the feeling that getting my hair done is a form of therapy for me.  It’s a feeling of renewal.  A feeling of cutting off the old and getting a fresh new look.  I like to change how I wear my hair. Sometimes I’m growing it out and wearing it curly.  Sometimes I cut it off short and straighten it daily.  I get it colored all over dark on occasion.  Then I switch it up and get caramel highlights in my dark brown hair.  I started discovering gray in my hair from the early age of 22.  So covering my gray regularly and getting my roots done was far from drudgery for me, because it gave me the excuse to go to the salon often.  But recently I’ve been thinking about a drastic change.  Not only a change in my hair color, but a change that is requiring a shift in my attitude and mindset.  I’ve decided to let my hair go gray.  

There!  I said it publicly.  My decision has nothing to do with avoiding the regular upkeep of monthly visits to the salon.  It has nothing to do with the cost of that upkeep.  It essentially has to do with the (non-hair) growth I experienced in the last year.  The COVID 19 pandemic helped this decision along in more ways than one.  I was avoiding unnecessary exposure to people during the holiday season, so I canceled my December appointment and didn’t schedule another one.  My last visit to the salon was November 2020.  Then the first part of 2021 flew by so quickly!  All of a sudden it was mid-March, and I had an inch of gray roots in my dark hair.  I started to think about it.  What if I didn’t cover my roots.  What if I let it go gray.  I started doing research on Pinterest.  I pinned pictures of beautiful highlights.  Beautiful women.  I decided that if I was going to do this, I wasn’t going to skip the salon altogether and go au natural.  I wanted it to be intentional.  I wanted to get highlights and have it blended.  I didn’t want the dreaded line of demarcation.  As I continued my research, I also discovered articles written by women, who were younger than me, talk about how freeing it was.  They shared how other women said things like “I love your hair, but I could never do that!”  They made it sound like an exercise in bravery.  Was I brave enough? 

So I called and made an appointment.  It was still a week and a half away, so in that time I continued my research and sought the advice of those around me.  It’s just hair, right?  Why is so much of our sense of self tied up in what’s on the top of our head?  Men are called “distinguished” with their salt and pepper hair for generations, as women have been spending hours and hundreds of dollars to hide the fact that we are aging.  Women are supposed to look young until there is no way to hide it any longer.  But what age is that?  Who determines that age?  Why don’t I want people to think I’m (gasp!) old?  I feel young.  When I think about age as a number, it’s unreal to me that I’ve made this many cycles around the sun.  I’m the happiest, strongest, healthiest at this point in my life than at any other time.  And I think that, right there, is why I entertained the idea of going gray in the first place.  I’m attempting to put my authentic self out front and visible.  And right now, my authentic self is happy.  My authentic self is an entrepreneur.  My authentic self is living the life I have worked 20+ years to have.  And so what if my authentic self has gray hair.

Last Friday was my appointment.  I sat in my stylist’s chair and said it.  “I think I want to let my hair go gray.”  I showed her the pictures I had saved on Pinterest.  I shared that I wanted highlights to blend with the gray as it came in.  We talked about color options.  And then she did it.  Because my hair is so dark, my initial look in the mirror was a bit surprising.  I’ve had highlights many times before, but not this color, and never without my roots being dark.  The highlights were a beautiful ashy color that blended wonderfully with my naturally dark hair and graying roots.  I loved it!  

I’m not gonna lie, I still analyze my hair in the mirror every time I see myself.  It is a glaring change for me that shocks me a bit at first glance.  I wonder if others will notice.  I worry that others will focus in on the gray when they talk to me.  Then I stop myself.  I don’t want to allow others’ thoughts about me affect my self worth and identity.  But as time passes (it’s only been a week at this point) the shock lessens.  I am still questioning my decision.  For right now, I’m brave enough to let it go gray.  I’m hoping I stay brave enough to continue to let it go.  I’m brave enough to share this story publicly in this blog post, and that’s a start.  It’s always possible I will go into my next appointment and go dark again.  I hope I don’t.  I hope I continue to be brave enough to be authentic and own my age.  I hope my youthful energy shines through and no one notices that my hair is going gray.  Always a work in progress.  Always growing.