Gray and Proud (OFF TOPIC!)

WARNING:  If you are one of the two's of people who read this blog, this is not about FISH! Run for cover........

This post is about Gray Hair. Yes, I "transitioned" several years ago to a head of mostly silver, with a good bit of brown in the back. You'd not think this was a subject worthy of a blog post, but, sadly in our world it is notable. 

I pulled my first white hair from my head in 7th grade, and have slowly been sliding towards silver ever since. My father began going gray at a very young age, around 18 or 20, so I come by it naturally. I spent most of my young adulthood coloring my hair, not necessarily to cover the gray but for fun and to change my look frequently. I stopped coloring when I was pregnant, both times, but resumed soon afterwards, especially after the last pregnancy when the gray was really evident.

My husband, Rick, began to make noises about me perhaps letting my hair go gray, and I laughed - are you kidding!?  In this day and age to take a step to actively make yourself look older when everyone else is clamoring to look younger?  It was counter-intuitive.  Then I began to really examine why I did not want to let my natural hair color grow in. Do I have something to hide? Am I really fooling anyone? Is there a good reason I should not look my age?

My hair grows very quickly and that gray stripe began to appear about every 3-4 weeks, when I'd break out the good old headband, scarf or hat and soldier on until I could get a touch-up. The coloring treatments can be expensive, and since my hair was relatively long it was difficult for me to do it myself properly, though I certainly did plenty of times when cash was low. It would come out uneven in the back, where I could not see, and I got sick of the mess and chore of it. Professional dye jobs can be exorbitantly expensive, as most women know, and this was starting to seem like an unnecessary expense.


Then, and this is a demonstration of my rebellious personality, I began to be offended that society was telling me I had to color my hair, and I was doing it willingly. I was living the hardcore punk rock life from my teenage years to my early 20s, and I don't like being told what to do, from WAY back, as my mother will tell you. I don't even like an automatic transmission in a car deciding when to shift - I'll make the decisions when I'm behind the wheel, thank you!  Here I was, going along with this social norm because I thought I should, and I was vain enough to think I would no longer be worthwhile or valued if I had gray showing. People go to such great lengths to cover their gray, after all; the consequences must be DIRE! 


The older I become the more annoyed and now offended I get with the ageism in this country (uh oh, here she goes....). We value the young, which is fine, but we'd prefer to let 18-year-olds make decisions for us, apparently, because everyone is desperate to look 18, so 18 must be the age when we've got everything under control, right? As a former 18-year-old and the mother of a 19-year-old, all I can say is, "HA!" The older we get the more we know, and the more we have to offer. We're still the same person we were when we were 18 and looked 18, except we are so much smarter, and have learned so much about life. This is not recognized, but it is reality. I am mainly speaking about life as it pertains to women, mind you. I'm not really a feminist, but it is certainly true that you fellows can go gray and still achieve plenty of success in your professional lives, but women might not get that promotion or get that new job based on looks, specifically if she looks "old." 


"Old" means worn out, out of touch, unhealthy, closed-minded, apathetic, boring, sluggish, depressed and depressing. Young women, or young-looking women, are exciting, up to date, hip, interesting, active, knowledgeable, capable and fun. Two women of the same age applying for the same job don't have equal chance if one colors her hair and the other doesn't - the one who colors is likely to get the job if both are qualified. The one who doesn't color her hair has "let herself go" and is therefore less valuable as a person.


This all upsets me quite a bit, as I'm sure it does everyone as they age, but considering that everyone is aging (sorry, young people, it will happen to you, too, God willing) you'd think the older people of the nation would unite and work on changing the societal norm of being youth-obsessed. No, this is not the case, they are the ones pushing supporting the ageism movement. 


Now, once I got good and riled up, and wanted to rebel against society telling me what to do, lol, I agreed to stop coloring my hair and see how it went. Rick was very happy about this, because he admires "natural" women, whom he considers to be strong, powerful and attractive. He thought I'd look great with gray hair. Silver ladies, pray he, or a guy like him, is the one to conduct your next job interview.

For anyone who has lived through the transition of growing out hair color without literally buzzing your hair down to the skull, it is not much fun. I'm sure women who are well endowed in the chest know the feeling, but this is the opposite - people's eyes constantly flit upwards to your hairline instead of down to your boobs. You can see their mind pass over the reasons you've allowed your roots to show:  she's really low on money, poor dear; she doesn't realize she needs a root touch-up, poor dear; she's MUCH older than I thought, poor dear.... etc. I, like many women, resorted to wearing headbands when the white stripe was too strange-looking. I had one tipsy guy at a party once lift the edge of my headband and say, "It appears that the color of your hair is very different at the front than at the back." Congratulations! You win the Observant Award! Then he asked me why.  Why? Because I'm letting my gray come in, dummy. I had a question or two for him about his look and grooming habits, but I was raised better than that. 


The real question was, "Why aren't you covering the gray in your hair?" This went on and on, and on and on, because it takes years to grow out color, and it takes years before you don't look like something went horribly wrong on the top of your head. Styling choices took on new meaning - a bun means your dark color-treated hair is plopped right atop the shining white part, and you look like you have a fake bun, but wearing it down shows the clear line where the new growth was not colored and it is more noticeable. You can cut it all off or not, try low-lights or color washes to ease the transition, etc. It was a long road!


It became part of my identity, and still is, obviously, since I'm blogging about it. It gets brought up nearly every day by someone, depending on how many places I go. Now that it is mostly grown out, or at least it looks natural and the darker areas are in the back and at the ends so it doesn't look like a beauty school accident I don't get the odd looks, but people do the double-take. I'm 46 so certainly not one of these really young women who sport gray hair (this is a stunning look!), but people definitely seem surprised when they realize I'm not a much older person, or I'm guessing that's the reason. When I'm paying for something, or dealing with the general public directly I often get compliments about my hair, or with a new or casual acquaintance they'll say, and this happens a lot to me, "Well, it looks good on YOU, but I could never do it." To me this is not a complement, but I'm not sure why, though they surely mean it to be. Am I really getting away with something? That's sad!

My own mother, who is in her 70s and still colors her hair brown, was initially upset that I was letting my gray grow in - she was not happy having a daughter with gray hair. Most of my other family members were supportive, and even a cousin or two told me they were going to do the same thing. Someone even told me that I would be "unhirable" and that you must keep yourself up to get a job these days, with unemployment so high. 


The main thing I get is that I'm "brave" to do it. If this is bravery, what do you call what our troops are up to in Afghanistan? I guess in our culture it IS brave to take something that can so simply and easily be corrected, and choose not to correct it, like not shaving your legs. 

My hair is so much healthier and shinier, and it feels soft. It takes a bit of extra attention to conditioning so it doesn't look frizzy, but that's not hard to accomplish these days with the array of hair care products available. I use a blue/purple shampoo to keep the white bright, since it can yellow with sun, chlorine, pollution, etc. I feel freer somehow, like I have a secret, though I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would recommend I resume coloring it. I saw a woman recently who is in her 50s and has a gorgeous straight angled bob of gleaming silver hair, and she looks wonderful - I don't know that I'll look wonderful but I'm looking forward to my hair being more gray than brown. 

To that end, I can say the worst is over and I'm on the road to pure silver. Hopefully this will not keep me from succeeding professionally, but the medical field is a little more forgiving than some other fields might be when it comes to appearance. Being well-groomed and professional in manner and attire can make up the difference, I hope. At the least maybe it will give others the idea that maybe they don't need to color anymore, either.


Ultimately, I am happy I did it, and far more people give me truly genuine and heartfelt compliments. My husband loves it, and is my biggest supporter - he considers it his life's work to do what he can to make me feel beautiful. Well, maybe until I stop shaving my legs, but that's another post. ;-p