to dye for

Posted by agarnergirl on May 9, 2011 · 1 Comment 

I remember the moment of discovery.

I was fourteen years old and sitting in my trigonometry class when I heard the voice of my friend sitting right behind me.

“Hold still,” she instructed, “I think you have a fishing line in your hair.”

I obeyed, cringing all the while. I was pretty sure that what she had discovered was a white hair, not fishing line. I was correct.

She plucked it out and we proceeded to inspect it.

“It’s so wiry! Weird.”

I was slightly mortified. Finding that first white hair on my head was not exactly fun. I knew that it meant that more would be showing up. It was just a matter of time.

For years I’d pluck out any that I found. It was a losing battle of course, but I wasn’t willing to concede that loss until last summer. I figured that when you can no longer keep an accurate count it’s time to put down the tweezers.

There’s the context for you. Now for my dilemma:

To dye, or not to dye? That is a question.

I love the color of my hair. I love that stylists regularly ask if it’s my real color. I don’t love the thought of that changing. I dread the moment that’s coming when their question inevitably changes to, “Have you thought about coloring your hair?”

In a culture that prizes youth – or at least the illusion of it – dying one’s hair is one of the no-brainers of masking our aging process. At least that’s the case for a lot of women.

I’m not sure that I want hair dye to be on my no-brainer list, but it’s not easy. I’m a little embarrassed at how much time I’ve spent agonizing over the growing colony of white hairs that have made my head their home.

I want to be the kind of woman who can gracefully accept the inevitability of change, but I’m not quite there yet. Still, there’s some evidence of progress.

Last week a woman sitting next to me noticed one of my little white hair frenemies and asked if she could pull it out.

I told her no.

Her hair color may have faded, but she's not afraid to rock bold colors in her wardrobe! I hope the same is true of me in 40 years.

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