Chasing the Gray

The first time I found one, I studied it for a long time.  I wanted to be sure it wasn't a trick of the eye or a reflection from the light. How had I not noticed it before?  It was as long as the rest of my hair.  As I observed it, the contrast between my dark auburn shoulder-length hair and this impossibly long bright white hair seemed to grow.

When I finally plucked it, I held the undeniable proof of my mortality between my thumb and forefinger.  It had a coarse texture, a certain kinkiness.  I held it up to the light, marveling at my body's new creation, the product of a tough pregnancy and a month of sleepless nights caring for a newborn.  I wanted to place it in a special box, marked milestone body secretions, but Bella began whimpering and I threw it carelessly into the toilet before rushing to soothe my first-born.

It's been seven years since I plucked my first gray hair.  Many of its brothers and sisters have followed it down the toilet.  My amusement over this new phenomenon rapidly gave way to depression and then acceptance as I found gray hairs more and more frequently.  What began as an occasional game of "pluck that sucker" has turned into a nightly twenty-minute grooming ritual.  I am no longer eradicating their presence, just minimizing their impact.  One warm summer night this summer, I felt a sharp pain as one of my friends plucked a tantalizing gray stray. The time has come to embrace a new solution.

I do not come from a line that grays gracefully.  Our gray hair does not add new interesting highlights.  Instead, they clash, stand out and shock, giving an overall appearance of dirty and greasy hair.  My sisters and I always joked about one aunt in particular who was partial to wearing mumus to accentuate the Cruella effect of the few brown streaks amongst her gray.   I now have nightmares that I will look at a picture of her and see the resemblance to myself. 

I have been discussing my hair dye options with my hairdresser for a few years now, but have always found a reason to postpone the inevitable.  But I've run out of excuses.  There are no more planned pregnancies on the horizon.  My hair has finally stopped falling out in clumps from the post-partum hormones.  And the gray is spreading.

It's time.  Time to find new shampoos for color-treated hair.   Time to double (or is it triple?) the cost of my haircuts.  Time to change the texture of my soft hair.  Time to embrace this new beauty routine.  But maybe, just maybe, it's finally time to try life as a red-head.