Some of you may have wandered over to my other blog, Green, Gray, and Grace since it got rolling in February, but for those who have not, or haven't been recently, I'm just going to let you know that the Gray part of the experiment is going the "best" so far. I've been making baby steps towards green, and thank God, Grace wraps around me every minute of every day despite my wobbly progress towards living more gracefully. But the gray part is taking care of itself.
And going gray at 33 has already been a perplexing adventure.
On the one hand, I kind of love the gray streaks. On a good day, they make me feel cool and confident and individual in the best way. I give myself smug smirks in the mirror and think "YOU are going to be a better person for doing this. If YOU can let go of hair dye, then you can start hacking away at all those other crutches and vices. YOU are going to prevent sinkfulls of chemicals and boxes of waste from mucking up the earth on your account. YOU are going to practice some zen while letting your body do its thang." (Sometimes my internal dialogue is more than a little self-absorbed). On a good day, I can imagine a chic and well-maintained hair cut that makes me look at least fabulously self-aware, if not fabulous. On a good day I feel happy with the sizzles of white against the true brown of my natural hair. I haven't seen my actual hair color in years! It reminds me of weathered wood siding. Minus the lichen.
Then there are all those other days where I see myself aging in fast-forward. Getting old, wrinkly, and shuffling ever closer to nursing homes and death. Morbid? Maybe, but I've seen it, and in my family those things started pulling people into their vortex before they hit 60. And there's no doubt that gray hair makes you look older. It just does. I'm not really trying to usher in a trend of young silver foxes, I'm just trying to see whether I can make permanent peace with my real hair.
Overall, though, I'd say that my greeny experiments with natural face soap and moisturizing lotion have produced much better results than I feared. My skin looks and feels better than it has in YEARS, despite my expectations that I needed all those chemicals and bottles and creams and AHA and, I don't know, "shimmering moisture beads" or some such crap. Guess what? I don't. And you don't either. I feel lighter for having let go of almost all of my product-dependence. I still wear makeup (natural, talc-free). I still use regular deodorant. I'm beginning the process of weaning myself off regular shampoo and conditioner.
So I guess there is a legitimate risk that eschewing hair products and conventional makeup may cause me to descend into a freak-zone and people will talk out of the sides of their mouths about me when I walk past. "How old do you think she is? Her hair says 45, but her clothes scream 'I'm desperately trying to look young and fashionable.'... Is that a water bottle wearing a sock??'"
Sigh. Or, maybe everyone else is very busy NOT caring what I look like, or what color my hair is. I am not a celebrity, and I don't have a very public life. My work friends and most of my other friends know that I'm trying out this gray-hair thing, and you all have been terrifically supportive.
Personally, I would be thrilled to make it past my 60s, and if I do, I won't give a flying flip what color my hair is. If Hubs and I can grow old together, and stay relatively healthy for at least the next couple of decades, I guarantee you I will not look back over these next 30 years and fret about what color my hair was.
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