Why I said “YES”... to the Beauty of Gray Hair

For the past few months I have been exploring the idea of dying my hair. I will be 55 years old in October and the isolated gray strands of hair are increasing. They are gathering in clustered groups and I am more aware of the gray. For the first time I have joined the conversation: to dye or not to dye.

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I dyed my hair blond in 10th grade to please a boyfriend. At a Saturday night sleepover with my girlfriend, Nancy Koerner, we decided to dye my hair since my boyfriend said he preferred blonds. Ugh! Even writing that statement makes me sick to my stomach right now. But that was the state of my self-esteem. To even consider changing my body in ANY way to please a man... a boy. Ugh!

Nancy was my best friend and she loved to play with hair. She was my anti-thesis. I didn't even brush my straight, thin hair every day.  She was always experimenting with hair color and style. She decided I should have highlights, I think it was called frosting. As she pulled the strands of hair through holes in the cap with an instrument that looked like a crochet hook, my hair got all tangled.  After about an hour of this frustration, Nancy and I decided to dump the chemicals on all of my hair. We both looked in the mirror at the end of the process and lied to each other about how good it looked.

When my boyfriend saw me the next day with blond hair he just stared at me. Ouch! The memory of standing in the driveway of my home and seeing the look of horror and shock on his face, still brings back memories of hurt. He broke up with me a few weeks later and it took a few years of dying my hair with a brown tint, waiting for it all to grow back to the natural color of mousy brown to move on from that dying incident. I never had the desire to dye my hair again. As a matter of fact, I had an aversion to it. It reminded me of a time I did something, "to be loved," that was out of integrity with who I am. Good, painful life lesson.

Throughout my life time I have had a variety of haircuts and body waves to try to find the right hairstyle. I would find a haircut that worked for awhile, struggle to find something new and then throw up my hands in surrender. I have straight, thin hair with several cowlicks. Challenging, uninteresting hair.

For a period of about five years in the late 1990's, early 2000's, I lived in paint clothes and wore a bandana on my head. Home schooling my kids, running Girl Scout troops and Destination Imagination teams I also refinished the floors and painted all of the walls in an 11 room house we were renovating. I never felt self-conscious about being in public with uncombed hair hidden by the bandana. Grocery shopping, a coffee shop, or meeting a friend for a casual lunch. It was my lifestyle and I loved the creativity that was flowing through me in the renovating and learning environment.

Oh, and when I went camping with the Girl Scouts, I did not look for a shower. Camping for three days meant dirty body, dirty hair and dirty clothes. Taking a shower while camping seemed like a contradiction.

You can see that I am not a primping and polished kind of girl. But, primping and aging are two different things. As I have explored my inner voice this year, I have also taken more moments to look at my body, my hair, the wrinkles around my mouth and eyes and the stretch marks on my belly. I notice the sagging chin and the graying hair. The red capillaries and rosacea that appeared on my face after the birth of four children. The freckles that are beginning to look more like age spots.

In those moments of self-examination, I think about plastic surgery, dying my hair, losing weight, and beauty products. I feel into the vulnerability, the messages from society, the aging that is happening with the passing of time.

This morning I looked in the mirror and saw a section of ten hairs that were all gray. That is enough of a gathering, a clustering to change the color of my hair in certain spots. It is a preview for what is coming.

I stood still, took a breath and felt my way into the beauty of this time of my life. Carving a path of what it means to get older. All of the wisdom. The feeling of being deeply connected to my soul. Knowing who I am. I have had such an amazing life. So many incredible experiences. And more than the memories of travel to Hawaii, ziplining in Jamaica, owning an 11 room house, I am thinking about the waves of life where I have learned who I am; where I learned how to surf with the challenges. Now that is living an amazing life. I know who I am. And I know if I decide to dye my hair, it will have to be for me. It will have to be because I want that experience for myself.

Looking in the mirror, I began to speak out loud. "Hello, you. What is the next adventure? Gray hair?" I began to feel the inner excitement of that. What would that be like? What shade of gray will be my natural color? I crinkled my eyes to accentuate the wrinkles. I examined all aspects of my face. I really looked at my face and I saw the adventure and the beauty of opening the door to the experience of aging.

In that moment, I decided...

I say, Yes! to my beautiful graying hair. I say, Yes! to embracing the experience of aging. I...say...YES!