Embracing my gray

The first time I colored my hair I was around 34...and I did it on live TV. So it was a pretty big statement for this small town girl. I went from very brown hair to very strawberry blond and about 10 inches of hair cut off in the process.

It was a bit of a shocker to my poor husband who sat in an office with my coworkers as they all watched on TV. He really, really hated it. But over the next few years I gradually dyed all the reddish color out of it to become "just blond". He liked that much better, but I became very weary of the whole process. My hair grows very fast and I found myself constantly (read every two weeks) dying my roots. So after a few years I went bold again....and dyed it back to brown.

But there is something about dying your hair. It's a process that is VERY difficult to stop once you've started. I tried growing it out several times but the root problem would always send me over the edge. But after awhile I just didn't care anymore and let the growing out process take over.

It took about 3 years to completely grow out the blond-to-brown-to-natural hair color. And I was fairly happy with the outcome. I didn't *hate* my hair color. It was just so BROWN. But it was hassle-free and I was no longer a slave to the bottle!! YAY ME!!

Then...I got bored at my best friend's house one night. *sigh*

So the past year has been spent trying to grow this out again. My husband would seek little glimpses of my real color in all its gray glory and ask me why I didn't just let it go? I'm really not bothered by the gray. Seriously. THERE'S JUST SO MUCH OF IT! The growing out process would have resembled just growing out the blond to brown instead of dying it. It is THAT different. So off to the hairdresser I went. She looked and poked and fussed and finally decided to put some highlights in my hair to "mimic" the gray while it grew out so that it was less noticeable.

And it was less noticeable. For awhile. Until it was halfway grown out and I looked like I had a fake hairpiece on if I wore my hair up. It was fabulous. Not.

But last month I got one last haircut that took out the tiny bit of coloring that was there. And this is what I was left with:



Pay no attention to that big 'ol schnozz of a nose. It's the angle. Trust me. Really. (You might also notice the illusion of cleavage. It's the angle again. Trust me. Really.) But look at all that gray!



I guess the good thing about it is that it is evenly dispersed on my head....unlike my poor sister who got her first gray hairs as a large patch in the center of her forehead just like our mother.

Truth be told I don't really mind the gray. It's quite sparkley in the sun. I love feeling truthful to my aging process and embracing the whole thing. And I really, really, reallyreallyreally like not having to color it anymore. And my husband LOVES it. He says it gives me character. That's got to be a plus, right?

And besides.....I earned every single one of those suckers.