Just the other day, I was washing my hands in the ladies room at work when I glanced up in the mirror. The light was just right and as I turned my head, a shimmer of light caught my eye. I’m thinking “how in the world did I get glitter in my hair??” A quick replay of everything I had worked on this morning…email..copying…purchase orders – nope, not a trace of glitter in any of those jobs – Curious?
Now my vanity is 100 percent sure I have managed to pick up a speck of glitter and maneuver it to my head somehow but my realistic side says “Girlfriend!! You’ve got some gray in that mop of yours!!” Hmmpf! Aren’t I too young to have gray? Surely gray is for “old” people and I’m not old am I?
AM I? AM I?
A closer look and instantly my heartbeat picks up the pace. If I can see the gray in the mirror then so can everyone else! “HARSH” reality. Funny how gray on everyone else is either distinguished or sophisticated BUT on me it is plain old Ugly. Now I’m not just saying that because I don’t want my hair to turn gray. My gray hairs are ugly, the course wiry kind (similar to those on a schnauzer – REALLY, just like that). You can bet, if you wind up with a whole head full of those you are in for some serious “Bad Hair Days”!! Could I get a little break here? If my hair has to turn gray couldn’t I get the beautiful silky silver hair that looks positively elegant when cut short at the nape of the neck – Oh Yeah!! That is the kind of gray I want.
I have spent the past twenty two years with some sort of artificial color on my hair. Maybe from a bottle or tube, applied with foil, pulled through a cap or artistically painted on with a brush. Whatever the method that I used to achieve a (perceived) prettier hair color, the fact of the matter is that it involved a lot of work, was relatively costly in the scheme of my beauty regimen and potentially unhealthy. So! This past year, I decided to go au natural and return to the mousy brown of my younger days. Herein lies the problem, after twenty-two years the mousy brown is being replaced by schnauzer gray.
Now all of this is distressing in more ways than one – first off, I don’t really want my hair to turn gray, second of all I often pray that God will give me the strength to age gracefully. Gracefully I said – did you hear that Grace – ful – ly. No mid-life crisis for me. Whining over gray hair is far from graceful so I will take the high road and be grateful that they are turning gray and not turning loose! I want to be strong enough to appreciate that each of those gray hairs was earned and that they are part of what defines who I am. For now, I will label those “you know what’s” as strands of glitter – Shine On!!!
