picture-87In my 18th year, I found a grey hair. I was baffled and confused. I was 18 and I had a grey hair. Was this really how the aging process worked? Turn 18, things start to change.

Not long after that, I found another. And another. Every time I looked, I had twice as many as I had had the last time. I decided this was the time to start experimenting with hair color. I went dark brown. I tried light brown. Red. Dark Purple. Nothing too crazy but it was all experimental and fun.

Then I lost interest and let it grow out. The greys started showing up with a vengeance. I realized if I was going to look my age (mid-twenties) I was going to have to make hair coloring a regular thing. By the time I reached 30 and had my first daughter, I could tell by my roots that the beautiful auburn was gone. Completely replaced with grey. If I laxed, I would get a skunk stripe along my part. Not attractive. With a new baby, job and more I didn’t have time to keep up with it. I tried to part it differently, tilt my head backward when talking to people, and more until I had a chance to cover it up. I didn’t like it, but it was a part of life for me. If it grew out a little too much, life didn’t end. I’d get to it when I could get to it.

I even had a person that I worked with at the time tell me he had noticed something about me when we had both attended a party over one weekend. He said it was something he was going to use to hurt me when he needed to in the future. Yes, he was mean and he sucked. I was tortured by this threat. I couldn’t figure out what he had figured out about me that would hurt me at an opportune moment. Finally, he told me he had noticed I needed to color my hair. He saw grey roots. THE HORROR! I laughed and was so relieved. Grey hair? Seriously. Ew ouch. That hurts. Whatever.

Because I had gone grey so young, it never really bothered me. I enjoyed renewing myself every 6-8 weeks and putting on a fresh color. I don’t enjoy the process, but I love the results. I still slightly vary my hair color every time I color it.

I have had grey hairs all my adult life. My paternal grandmother shared that she had begun to go grey at 18 too. You can’t mess with genetics. Now that I’m approaching the end of my thirties, I know several women that have begun to find greys and are having a hard time handling the change. It is a sign of growing older. I saw the sign about 20 years ago. I’m not ashamed or upset by my greys. They are a part of me. Sure I cover them up, I don’t want to look old. But I’m not affected by them like other women my age.

As I get older, I get more comfortable with who I am. I’m figuring it all out. But not everything. I still have a long way to go on my journey. I just hope I can handle the wrinkles, the reading glasses, the age spots, the aches and pains and the rest of the aging process as well as I live with my grey.