On Going Gray

Recently I encountered someone I'd known in my twenties, someone I used to meet when I hung out in places where there was drinking and loud music. I was thirty pounds lighter then and my hair was probably to the middle of my back and permed out of its genetically straight nature. We're talking over thirty years ago. I had not seen him in the years between.

I met this person during a business transaction set up by a mutual friend. He confessed he did not remember me. We did that thing where you talk about people you knew way back, when you could still dance for about six hours without getting short of breath, and what they were up to now. I had to admit I did not know or sometimes recall most of the people he mentioned, since I'd moved away from the town where he still lives, and anyway, I'm one of those people other people generally do not remember. I wasn't any more popular then. I'm okay with that.

Midway through the reminiscing, he said, "You know, my wife could help you with that hair. She works out of our house, she's pretty good."

We finished our transaction, talked a bit more, and he left.

Now, I do not know why this comment from someone I had not seen in decades -- barely knew then except to sing out the chorus of a ZZ Top song with on occasional Saturday nights among other inebriated people -- bothers me so much. I've got a niece who teases me about my hair going gray, which never bothers me. My mother occasionally comments upon it. Doesn't bother me.

But here's the deal: I am fifty-(mumble mumble). I took a good, newly self-conscious look the other day at my hair -- you see what this virtual stranger has done by invading my psychological space?

damn it

 -- and I would estimate that I am about 60/40 still brunette. That's pretty good.

 The last time I actually dyed my hair, somewhere near its original color, the people I worked with did not comment. You know what it means when there's no comment. It's generally not good. Honestly it looked like someone had dropped a mink on my head. I have never been remotely beautiful, but now I am not remotely beautiful and fifty-(mumble mumble). Dyed hair just doesn't work for my face.

Of course, I also never have the response I need when someone says something that rattles me, or I don't realize how much it rattles me until they're no longer there to respond to. But here's what I should have said:

I like my partially gray hair. It would be nice to be twenty-something again, to be able to dance and drink and stay up all night, but I am who I am, and my hair is the way my hair is.

I have grown/nearly grown children now. I have been married nearly a quarter of a century to someone who's also 60/40 gray. I love him more now than I did when we were both 100 percent brunettes, even though some of the gray I've developed is due to the experiences -- both good and bad -- we've endured together. I've lost and gained dear friends; worried exponentially through the teen years with our children; survived financial ups and downs, sleep deprivation, natural disasters, conflicts between family members, car crashes, holiday meal traumas, travel snafus, and career changes.

My gray hairs are earned. They are part of what I look like because of what I've experienced, just like my laugh lines and the never-fading scar on my knee from a game of hide-and-seek gone wrong when I was five. They mean that I've come far. I'm not judging anyone else who wants to change their appearance, to feel younger, to experiment with how they look, but I'm comfortable this way. I don't need to be twenty-seven again, even though I sometimes wish I was, because I happened to like being able to dance for six hours without getting short of breath.

I don't need help fixing something that's not broken.