quick
can you name
five female celebrities
who flaunt their silver tresses?
crickets chirping?
i admit
that i had to do a little googling
to find more than two
and no
Thelma Harper
isn't what we're going for here
Jamie Lee Curtis
was the first i thought of
Stacy London
model Cindy Joseph
not many
but now
i have something in common with
those lovely ladies
i'm embracing my gray
about a year ago
i realized just how much
i wanted to go natural with my hair
i quit coloring
cold turkey
made it about three months
before the panic set it
and i raced to Walmart
to bag a box of Clairol
not proud
but thankfully
before i could undo my good intentions
i stopped and asked myself
whether or not
i really wanted to back to the dark side
emphatically, no
and here's my list of whys
one
don't wanna chain myself to a box of hair color
or monthly visits to the salon
until i'm ninety years old
two
regardless of how crazy
most of my friends and loved ones
think i am to forgo eternal hair youth
i want to go my own way
i refuse to cave to the ever-present pressure
we women put on each other
to strive for false youth at all costs
three
i actually like how i look with gray hair
gasp
now that i'm coasting freewheeling down to forty
i've begun to look around and notice other women
in their forties and fifties
and what i see is this
most of them look their age
regardless of the color of their hair
it's true
in fact
i often think
that artificially dark hair juxtaposed against aging skin
doesn't look quite as youthful as i used to believe
i know now that my naturally lighter locks
complement my thirty-eight year old skin
better than the dark strands did
four
going natural has been liberating
i love feeling comfortable in my own hair
i love not having to worry about
my peek-a-boo roots
or the telltale stain of a fresh dye job
and i really don't miss ammonia aroma
or splotches of spilled dye on my bathroom floor
five
Chad loves my new look
i wasn't sure he would
because for years i've bought the lie
that all men want their women to look forever twenty-one
he doesn't
and he frequently tells me
that i'm more beautiful now than ever
thank the Lord for that man
so i'm not sorry
i made the switch
and endured all those unfun months
of growing out the old color
a few of my friends
have even commented that they really like my grays
on the subject of friends
let me be clear
and say that these reasons are my own
and that i'm not against hair coloring
i just think
that we ought to wear our hair
the way we want
without putting pressure on ourselves
to fit someone else's idea of beauty
and you
my dear readers?
do you color?
do you go au naturelle?
do tell.
{alison}
update
here's me
in all my grays
four years later
