Have you ever had one of those “OMG!” moments when you caught a glimpse of yourself from a different angle and you realize something about you has changed? It happened to me today in an elevator in Glendale, California. The elevator was walled with mirrors, brightly-lit and offered more reflections of myself than I really needed to see at 8:20 in the morning.
Usually those moments have been reserved for weight gain, as in “How in the world did I let my butt get this big again?” But on this particular morning it was all about my hair.
I’ve been salt-and-pepper gray for over a decade, now. This morning I realized that I am approaching all salt! How could I not have noticed before now? I decided long ago that I wouldn’t be dying my hair. After releasing myself two decades ago from straightening my hair, I knew too much about hair-freedom to even consider going back to the stranglehold of the beauty shop. So when the gray started coming in I just told people that “gray is the new blonde” and kept on stepping. With so many boomers turning gray, it actually seemed kind of trendy.
But when I saw the gray-haired ladies encircling me in the elevator, I swallowed hard. Now in all fairness, the lighting was such that it highlighted the gray. But there’s no denying I am a gray-haired woman.
As of this writing, I have on idea what I’ll do. Accept it? Change it? I don’t know, but I do know that this is another bend in the road on the journey.
Hmmm…. What I need to do is be grateful that I still have a head full of healthy hair. There’s a concept. Thank you, Lord.
