My first gray hair

I found my first gray hair.  I'm 34, it seems like the right age to acquire one's first gray hair.

I was surprised by my reaction to this single strand of white.  I have always been a person that has wanted to grow old naturally.  I don't want to dye my hair or alter the process in any way.  I want laugh lines. I am pretty low maintenance when it comes to all things beauty.  My mom is a serious hair-dyer.  She does it often and frequently.  She tried multiple times to get me to dye my hair.  One day I let her but it didn't stick.  My hair had to be in direct sunlight at just the right angle for you to even tell that my hair was the slightest tint of red.  It just isn't my thing.  I have sometimes secretly wanted it to be my thing...I wanted to care more about it.  I've purchased all the products.  I have entire drawers full of make-up and hair product.  I've just never figured out how to make it work and every time I do my make-up in any shade other than "barely there" colors, I look in the mirror and feel like I'm looking into someone else's face.  So, I'm a wash my face, brush my hair, low fuss girl.  Just who I am.

And then I saw the gray hair.   I will admit that I had a bit of freak-out moment.  Years of hearing the evils of gray hair and aging came crashing over me.  It was a remarkable thing.  I stood there in my bathroom staring at this single gray hair.  I almost pulled it out and then a saying that I heard countless times growing up came to me.  "If you pull it out, seven more friends will come to visit".  What?!! As though me pulling out my gray hair would cause more to grow out of spite and revenge.  The gray hairs would gather together and avenge the death of their friend.  I laughed at myself...but I didn't pull the hair out of my head. 

Why would I want to pull it out anyway?

That's the real question, isn't it?  What is so wrong with having a gray hair?  Why did it freak me out?  Why can't I, as a woman, be excited to be aging?  Why can't I be described as distinguished as I age? Why should I feel like I need to remain forever young?  I studied sociology and worked for a long time to figure out how to respond to the societal pressure to be thin and balance that with how I felt, my own sense of self, and my own feelings of health.  I understand how the culture and society I live in influences my feelings about beauty and aging.

There has been a lot of news lately about beauty and photoshopping and the unrealistic and unfair standards of beauty.  I saw an article by the The Telegraph recently where they were discussing Diane Keaton at the Golden Globes and then the L'oreal commercial where she was smoothed and photoshopped.  I truly think she looks better at the Golden Globes.  She looks alive and real and naturally beautiful.   There have been stories about the Aerie american eagle brand that is no longer going to allow photoshopping.  Their move has been considered revolutionary.  It makes me sad that showing young women as really beautiful people just as they are is revolutionary but it is.  I know that the comments on those ads will say that those women are fat or they will analyze every ripple and every curve.  We commit unspeakable damage through the ways that we treat one another, the ways that we rip one another apart.  I know this.  I see it clearly.  I have worked to empower myself and those around me to see themselves as more than failures because we can't live up to standards of beauty that aren't real or attainable. 

That said, I was surprised at the vehemence of my repulsion to that gray hair but I refuse to surrender to it.  I have made friends with my gray hair.  I reserve the right to dye my hair at some point.  I celebrate women that choose to express themselves and their beauty however they want.  The point, isn't that we shouldn't use make-up or dye our hair or lose weight or wear high heels or whatever it is.  The point is that we shouldn't feel like we HAVE TO in order to be beautiful because we already are and it is our flaws, imperfections, quirks that serve as our ultimate beauty marks.

We are a term my friend Meg was taught by one of her students - We are FLAWSOME!