My First Gray Hair...(Dun Dun Dun)

The other day I went in to get my haircut.  I won’t lie it was way overdue and I was so excited for my hair to feel clean again (not clean like I don’t wash it, but clean like I don’t have any more split ends).  I go to Remedez at the Orem University Mall and a man named Jared does my hair.  I have never had a male cut and color my hair before him, but it only took one chance with him to fall in love with his work! He really cares, is detail oriented, he knows what he is doing and what looks good.  And to be honest I tend to get along better with the single and forty year old male (who may or may not be gay-I know you are all thinking it anyway, I might as well just say it) than with the 20 something  girls in there.

So this lovely day he is cutting my hair, and I am just sitting there in pure bliss… I was so happy to be getting it cut. Then all of a sudden Jared blurts out, “You have your first gray hair!” Yes that is an exclamation point, and yes it was said with excitement as if he were happy he was the one to find it. But truth be told I had actually found it a few days earlier…

Have you ever wondered how you would react to something or feel when a certain event takes place?  I am sure you have.  I have.  I do it all the time.  Some of my most favorite ones are how will I feel when I get proposed to? or what would it really feel like to know that I have a little person growing inside my tummy (I even thought about this one today, so congrats to Lindsay and Pete!)?  But another one that I have vainly wondered about was what I would feel when I found my first gray hair.  Well now I know…

I always told myself it wouldn’t bother me.  It’s just hair, and if I can afford it my hair will be colored anyway (not because of the gray but because I am not a huge fan of my natural color or lack of color).  There was also a part of me that worried it would bother me, and I knew that just wasn’t appropriate since I seem to always be telling women that they are more than what they look like and they can be loved even if they don’t ‘look’ perfect.  So if I did freak out about a gray hair I am pretty sure that would qualify me for the hypocrite card.  So I would just tell myself, it would be no big deal, not to worry about it, and equally cliché phrases to keep myself upbeat about the thought of finding gray.  But I couldn’t help but think that maybe it really would bother me.

And when the day finally arrived, when I finally found that lone strand of gray I found myself actually feeling excited like I had just found a buried treasure.  I mean there is only one gray hair on my whole head of hair, which is kind of like a treasure, right?  Instead of telling myself I was old and single which definitely puts me in the old maid category, I told myself I was wise and distinguished.  This little gray strand symbolizes that I have lived and learned and now I have something that shows it! My little gray strand tells the world that I have experienced a thing or two, and while I have hardly any answers I do have my own experiences and they are worth something!