To Hell with Going Gray Gracefully!

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Since I’m a little (!!) obsessed with the topic of gray hair, I spend a lot of time online looking at pictures of gray hair and reading about gray hair. And one thing I keep seeing are articles about “How to Go Gray Gracefully.” For some reason, the phrase bugs me. All I can think when I see it is “Screw going gray gracefully!”

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But “going gray gracefully” as a concept still irks the crap out of me. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’ve come up with these reasons why I don’t like it:

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The gray hair transition has brought up a LOT of feelings for me. It’s a deeply personal experience. So telling me how to do it “gracefully” seems like butting in! Going gray has made me think about things like my mortality.

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The gray hair transition has made me think about women, culture, and society. Why is everyone so invested in controlling women’s behavior? It also has brought up questions about ageism, biology, and genetics… I’m not close to my biological paternal relatives (by choice), but it has made me wonder: Do they look like me? What else about them is similar?

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The gray hair transition also makes you think about identity. What does it mean to be a person on this planet? If I was this person before (young, brunette), who am I becoming? Will she be different than the current me, and the one I was before? If that’s the case, who am I, really?

I used to go NUTS when I saw gray hair poking through. It made me a little OCD to see the white hair coming up in the middle of my expanse of dyed dark hair.

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I vow to ROCK my gray hair and ROCK the rest of my life! OK, I was going to stop there – on a high note! – but then I remembered I forgot to explain about the moon and butterflies:

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