I’ll never forget it; it was my Freshman year in college and a guy sitting behind me in one of my classes pulled a hair out of my head, showed it to me and said, “Hey! Didja know you had a gray hair?”
I dyed my hair regularly for the next thirty years.That meant a seat in a salon every four weeks, and for the last week and a half, I’d have to use hair mascara.
I didn’t trust box dye from the drugstore, so I spent hours on YouTube figuring out how to mix salon quality colors with different levels of developer (apologies to people who actually went to school for this…believe me, I never was great at it!)
I work in a really young industry. I date a younger man. I FEEL young! Would it mean I’d never get hired? Never be loved? What would people think?? I mean, it’s crazy, right?
So I kept dyeing. And kept on with all the crap that comes with dyeing: the monotone hair, scheduling dyes to coordinate with events and vacations, feeling gross if a little white skunk stripe showed up, spending money on supplies.
I feel like I’m in a new category: before, I was a tired passing-for-youngish person just barely clinging to it, and now I’m a fresh-looking older person!
I recently went on vacation and then went through the holidays without once worrying about making that salon appointment so I wouldn’t have gray roots for photos – how freeing!