The Idea-smithy

I found my first grey hair last month. I started screaming. I don’t know what surprised me more, the grey hair or my reaction to it. I always thought I’d age gracefully. I always imagined that I wasn’t vain. I guess I had also assumed that I would be doing all this because I didn’t expect to grey early.

Let me explain. I wasn’t a pretty kid; buck teeth, acne and a figure resembling Olive Oyl…oh, forget it. The one thing that I did have was nice hair – straight, silky and a glossy black. I figured I had inherited just the right set of genes for a change from parents who started greying quite late. Puberty and those magicians called orthodontists took care of the aforementioned issues but your first impressions of yourself tend to stay. Inside my head I was always the gangly girl with bad skin and great hair.

Hair, my lovely hair has been my crowning glory especially these past few years as I learnt to ‘maximise my assets’. It curls easily, it waves well, it bounces, it rebonds smoothly, it colours nicely and it always looks good. I’ve sported dozens of different hairstyles in the past ten years, everything from shaggy bangs to fringes, asymmetrical bobs, flips, almost-crew cut, sheet-over-my-shoulders and what not. My hair is a statement of my personality – versatile and free-spirited.

Most of all, watching my parents look good and better, year after year, I assumed I’d follow their footsteps. But here I am not even thirty yet and I’m turning grey!!! Life is not fair.

It was late evening when I started inspecting those suspiciously coloured specks in the front locks of my hair. My mother suggested that the light was just catching on the gloss of my hair and I may have even bought that. But masochist that I am, I brushed my hair thoroughly and finally unearthed a completely unapologetic long strand, entirely grey in colour. Not even a nice silvery grey or even a smooth white, just a dull grey.

Last week at my hairdressers’, I explained my tail of woe about the grey attack. My mind-reader/stylist paused mid-brush and said,

Actually its not one strand, there are two. You are not the only one.

I knew he would say that so I wailed,

But the others have premature greying in their blood!! Or they don’t take care of their hair! I’ve always been good to mine!

He shrugged and asked,

So what do you want to do about it? Colour? Tint? Hightlight? Treatment?

And suddenly I knew I didn’t have to think to say,

No. Let it be as it is.

I guess I just realised that my hair was always at its best when it wasn’t fussed over (just like me) and there was no reason to start now. Greydom, I’m just going to have to make room for you in my life.

Maybe I’m allowing myself the comfort of believing that it is stress-related and that I may have some control over the process by cutting out stress. Maybe I’m afraid it will just get worse. Maybe I’m ashamed of being so vain. Or maybe, just maybe I’m going to age gracefully.

Wish me luck, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. I know that now.