I try to look at gray hair not as a loss of color but as a blank slate. It’s a chance to experience the color palette like I did my first box of 64 Crayola crayons.
Pure possibility.
Kind of like what I did when I cowered in misery in the basement bathroom of a rented house when I discovered I’d lost my way.
At the time, I accepted that I was completely responsible for the predicament I was in and could be completely responsible for creating another. Or I could check out. All I had to do was open the box and choose a happy hue – perhaps one I’d never noticed before. The question was, did I still want to color?
When I was a little kid I was weird. Let me qualify – stranger than I am now. I used to squint my eyes and treat every object in view as the white between black lines in my coloring book. Then I’d hold up a finger very close to my eyes and color it in.
People look at you strange when you’re weird. Go figure.
Then one day someone caught me. An upper classman on the bus mimicked my gesture and colored me back. I was mortified. I spun around in my seat and wished I’d disappear. My secret was out. And as usual, I got the feeling that I was sorely out of place.
Like that rogue hair I discovered. On my chin. The showoff. It’s never the one that ends up in the food because it’s rooted deep in my cerebral cortex. At least that’s what it feels like when I pluck it.
You know the type—like a pube that broke off and relocated. Metastasized like a cancer. My God, I have pubic hair cancer!
That's just another great thing about aging. It can be a canvas for feeling out of place. When I go there, I remind myself that I can open that box at any time and color myself into the picture.
Convincing myself that I can do it is the hardest part. But once I look at it that way, it’s pretty easy.
Then, I color possibility.
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Thanks for reading!
Back to home.
For more of Cindy, stalk her at the links below or read her first novel, The Aliquot Sum, a humorous fictional account of what it's really like behind the chutes of the Professional Bull Riders. It's written for the new-adult genre and is currently in pre-production to be major motion picture!
For some reason I can't get wash that gray right outta your hair out of my head. From one weirdo to another, color away!
ReplyDeleteI love that song. I remember Kelly Siegele singing it on stage at Mar-Mac High in probably 1978. She did such an awesome job I never forgot. Only she was singing about a man. Hmmm. I'll have to ponder the correlation. Thanks for reading!
DeleteIf only I could remember what my natural hair color is. I blame it on the gray and all those dye jobs.
ReplyDeleteI love to blame so I'll join you. The last thing I care to do is feel responsible for any of it. Thanks for reading!
DeleteAs old as I am, I'm surprised I don't have gray hair. I would assume after raising two teen boys that I'd be covered in gray! If I ever do, I'll color my hair for sure.
ReplyDeleteIt's just another adventure. If you gray, it means you're ready for a different color. Thanks for reading!
DeleteMy hair is quite fair and I haven't noticed any grey yet, but I certainly have been developing new hair in places there was no hair before. It's like puberty all over again, but way less exciting.
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested in what genetic predisposition made that hair pop out in the place it did. I guess I could ponder that or just pluck it out. I'm not very smart so I chose the latter. Thanks for reading!
DeleteYep. Going to the salon in a week cuz the store-bought color isn't sticking. She (the pro) gets 1 chance to make her brand work. The family has been warned....I may begin looking like my mother.
ReplyDeleteStephanie, my patience with hair color is comparable. My husband is whiney about me going gray but he's got a few more years before it's easier to go gray than to color it. Go for it! I bet your mother looked great!
DeleteWhenever I get a weird chin hair I think of the remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum when he gets that really black, really stiff hair, I think it was on his back, and Geena Davis plucks it off for it. It was just the beginning of the end...
ReplyDeleteJoanne, I wish there was a game for those thick black hairs -- something akin to "Where the hell is Carmen Sandiego?" We could have fun with it. In a strange sort of way.
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