Monday, August 15, 2011

GRAYTFUL

I must have missed a hair appointment.

I see Hannah a whole lot—a cut, and then four weeks later a cut and color, and so on. I need shears to shape my coif at least every four weeks, but that’s too frequent for a new dye job. So we do the color thing about every eight. Sure I arrive at the color appointment with virgin roots so long I can actually see my natural hair hue (Hey, weird, I had no idea people were serious when they said that "dishwater" is a color . . .), but if I showed up between my cut appointments for a color, Hannah would get so sick of asking me how school’s going that I’d find my calls to the salon mysteriously rerouted to the time and temperature number. (Do they even still have those?)

So either our fine-tuned system is failing me or I missed an appointment ‘cause I swear to you, my roots have never been this long. They are so long that I made a very interesting discovery today: I am going to be one of those ladies with awesome silver hair.

You worry a little about that, you know? I mean, I don’t want to color my hair forever. But what if the gray of my Future is a noncolor equally as horrible as the dishwater hair of my Today? I have ever firmly believed that God intended I dye my hair. Why else would He have put a bland, blank canvas on my head? But like some people are deluded into thinking their future holds a retirement of golf and cruises, I have had a similar silly dream: that one day it will be okay with me that I stop dying my hair ‘cause beneath the cocoon of expensive fake pigment is a sparkly silver butterfly ready to immerge. That day would be the day when my gray hair to regular hair ratio is at least 7 to 3; buuut, only if I have the good kind of gray hair—the kind that’s a brilliant, celestial silver.

Guys, it’s going to happen. I’m going to be that tiny old gal with a spunky short hairstyle that’s a naturally luminous silver. How can I know this? How can I be sure?

Oh, you guessed it kidlets—I discovered gray today.

And not just like one aberrant strand trying to find itself that my stylist stumbles onto every couple years. No, there, a little to the right of my forehead is a family of bats—er, I mean gray hairs.

This was a big moment for me for a couple of reasons. First, as I said earlier, I’m going to have seriously bitchin’ gray hair when the ratio’s just right. Second, I am almost as cool as my mom. See, a few years ago she was like, This dying-my-hair crap is getting old. Let’s go with the gray! And we, her daughters, loved it. She embraced the salinization of her peppery top. A girl sees that in an older woman and asks herself, Can I be that cool? Will I be able to handle it? When gray arrives will I immediately dial my stylist for a touch-up and then collapse in a corner to cry about the death of my youth? Or will I take it in stride?

Oh yeah, I’m totally the take-it-in-stride kind. (When it comes to my hair. My wrinkled face? A totally different story.)

I extracted three of the family not because I was trying to destroy them, but because I wanted to be sure I that I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing. And I wanted to show my husband—like a puppy bringing in a mauled squirrel! See! See! See what I did!

He’s going to be so psyched to discover that he’s not the only one in the house whose stress is manifesting as a free dye job.

8 comments:

Sue said...

Hey, gray is the new blond.

And who knows, maybe when you're 50 you'll grow it out. I am because I can. And that's a good enough reason for me.

Megan said...

So you mean that if I go gray I'm going to go dumb as well? You don't seem to have gone dumb. (Or is that a dirty secret you're hiding quite well?)

Señora H-B said...

I've been sporting some greyness in my part for awhile now. I'm going with it. They're my badge from graduate school.

Yay silver hairs!

Sue said...

So growing hair out is dumb?

Tricia said...

I always said I'd go gray gracefully. Right up until the part where I was 31 and facing a salt and peppery existence at much too young an age.

I've fought it for almost eight years.

I'm almost to the point where I don't care much anymore. My roots are at least three inches long. Due to an unfortunate chain of family emergencies, my hair lady has been unavailable since May. And there ain't no one else gonna touch *this* here harr!

Embrace your gray. You're going to rock those white, wiry little suckers.

Rabid said...

SAME! SAME! SAME! I seriously cannot wait to go gray. However, the in-between stage is proving itself cumbersome. Every time I go for my dye job, I say, "just do an all over gray." And every time she says, "nope."

The question is, at what age do I do the all-over gray thing? 40? 50? When the spouse is all-over gray?

Jessica said...

You know how I feel about this. I'm just going grey from the start. It's gonna be magical.

Audrey said...

I pull 'em. The gray hairs. No joke. Tweezers and all. I dyed my hair for years, but now I'm back to the just-me color... and it's dark enough that the grays really show up! Which is NOT okay by me. Yet. So, here's my idea, you work on rocking that look, and when you prove it can be done, I'll follow in your impeccable, stylish footsteps. K? It feels like a win-win.