I just “did” my hair for the 512th time. Dark black with blue on the top and near my face to bring out my eyes and deep red underneath for some youngish spunk.

The reason for the red is a little part “because I wanted to try and see if I could pull it off” and a BIG part because my daughter saw a box of red hair dye in the store and said You could look like Ariel! with a big sweet I love princesses! grin. That was enough of a reason for me.

I had to do a dark color on top of my head to hide the tuft, yes I said tuft of grays that sit in the front of my hairline. Like a mocking reminder that I’m so not 20 and so not even close to 30 anymore. I want them gone. They look at me like those Mean Girls.

Okay, maybe not gone gone. I mean, I earned them. They are mine. Each one tells a story…

Like that time I drove my car through East LA coming back from a New Kids On The Block concert after only having my license for a month. I couldn’t find the freeway on-ramp. I remember my mom didn’t want me driving on the freeway. I think my first gray was developing under the skin that night at the ripe ol’ age of 17.

Oh, and how about those days struggling to pay for rent and food even though I had a full time teaching job?? Ugh. Here’s a gray…there’s a gray…

Putting together my own wedding on a shoestring budget. Watching the list increase with guests that I don’t even know. Gray, gray, gray…

Finding out I was pregnant and it was planned. Pop goes the gray!!

Finding out I was pregnant and it wasn’t planned. About 3 coarse hairs that day. Pop pop pop!

More recently, a near miss accident that only took a hubcap and not any of our lives. That’s when the tuft really got its luster.

All those stories, all those moments brought me here. A little saggier in the middle. A little wiser when I drive. Grays tell people you lived. You LIVED but you went through some shit and saw your way out. As you stand there, plucking at your thicker, more mature locks, remember it’s those grays that shout it all those stories out to the world.

But it’s cool to muffle their voices just a bit with some ammonia and paraphenylenediamine from time to time.

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1 Comment

  1. A great post! I haven’t dyed mine yet, the greys are there though and they grew in abundance when we moved from the UK to Canada last year. My hubby and I both laugh at all of our new “story tellers!”

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