If you’re reading this post, it’s possible you have more than a few gray hairs on your beautiful head. It’s also possible you’ve been doing all you can to hide them, like I used to do. Maybe you’re getting tired of hiding it and are interested in exploring your options. Maybe you want to be free of the effort and money needed to keep up that inauthentic vision of youth. This post is about my reasons for going gray and the lessons I learned on my way to loving it.
Let me first acknowledge that the 40’s are tough. It’s the decade you see real, physical evidence on your face and body of your fading youth and impending old age. It’s the decade we start seeing someone else in the mirror and that person feels like a stranger. Many of us react to that with freak outs and panic. I know I certainly did.
To slow my “decline” in my early 40’s, I tried Botox, youthful hairstyles, heavier makeup, diets, you name it. I even scoured YouTube for tips on how to apply makeup to look skinnier and younger. In other words, I was grasping for something that had already slipped through my fingers. I had zero acceptance of my new status in life – that of the middle aged!
If you’ve been to this blog before, you might have seen my first post on my Dark Night of the Soul. It’s a period where I hit my personal rock bottom after years of failing to honor myself and my true purpose in life. That Dark Night was the Universe’s gift to me, a kick in the pants, if you will. It was a message to stop ignoring the needs of my soul and to stop filling my life with self-medicating strategies that numbed the feelings telling me I was off my path.
After my Dark Night, I began the process of rebuilding myself and my life. I began to tear down the old patterns, habits, and thoughts that were keeping me from happiness and knowing my true self. I was 45 when my Dark Night happened and, after daily work and a dedicated spiritual practice, I was a completely new person by the time I turned 49. I had done my shadow work, learned forgiveness (especially for myself), and found self-love. It was an exciting and blissful time!
It was during this period, between the ages of 45 and 49, that I developed an increasing urge to live without airs, armor, or masks. What I mean is that I had a greater and greater need to be present in my life as my most authentic self. My work on self-love had allowed me to see my body as a gift from the Universe, and I was learning to respect that gift and to see its beauty, regardless of whether or not it fit society’s definition of the word.
So, as I neared my 50th birthday, I felt myself on the precipice of a pivotal decision. I could either continue to grasp at a youth that was already past and cover myself with all kinds of camouflage to hide my wrinkles and sagging body parts, or I could set myself free. You see, I came to realize that grasping at youth is the very antithesis of self-love. Every time I looked in the mirror and grimaced at my wrinkles or frowned at my weight on the scale for showing me how far I was from my 20-year-old self, I was essentially telling my body that it was not good enough. I was shitting on the gift that the Universe had given me.
And I was through with doing that.
Now, let’s take a second to talk about some of the reasons why women don’t go gray. And let’s be real about this. There is absolutely a double standard when it comes to women and men and we all know this. Men get supposedly sexier the older they get while women are seen as somehow washed up and invisible as soon as they start showing signs of age. Because of this, there is significant pressure on women to fight for that youthful image. In fact, I just read a post this morning from a woman who said that her gray-haired husband told her in no uncertain terms that he would not want a gray-haired wife!
And the pressure can be greater on single women competing in the dating scene, as I was. Many single, middle-aged men, who are also dealing with their own shock at seeing older faces in the mirror (queue Mid-life Crisis!), go on dating apps and seek out younger women or younger-looking women, to boost their flagging egos and feel younger themselves. To be competitive, a middle-aged woman has to bring her A-game and that means looking as young as possible, it seems.
The double standard isn’t going away anytime soon. That’s a symptom of a greater illness within our society that is too big to explore within the bounds of the message I bring today. My point is, unfair or not, these are valid reasons for choosing to avoid going gray. There are probably a thousand more we could think up but the thing is, none are reasons that respect, honor, and celebrate a woman’s natural aging process. So, what narrative are we really playing into?
What are we really clinging to?
Now, I have (or had) dark brown hair. I had been touching up my roots every 2 to 3 weeks for YEARS. But as I worked to embrace the new version of myself that I was actively creating, I knew this last holdout had to go. The only thing I had to figure out was how to find my courage and that’s when I started scouring the internet for stories from other women who’d taken the plunge. And I soon realized a couple of things…
The first, and this was VERY encouraging, is that there was hardly a single person who’d made the decision to go gray that didn’t eventually love it, with hardly a thought of going back. I did read a couple of stories, though, about women who tried going gray but caved and went back to dying. BUT they went gray again. Sometimes people need trial runs to be fully ready and there isn’t a single thing wrong with that.
The second is that there are two kinds of people. The first group likes to dip their toes in the water first before they slowly wade into the water. These are the ones who go the long route of the grow-out. The second group is the kind to canon-ball into the water. These are the ones who go the short route of the instant buzz or pixie cut.
Now, my ex-husband and I went bungee jumping in New Zealand before we were married some 20 years ago. He went first and I remember him standing on the edge looking down, bouncing on his knees and shaking out his hands as he tried to gather the courage to jump. Once he did, the attendant readjusted the line for my weight, connected me to the harness, and called me to up to the edge. I stood up from the bench and walked right off the edge without a single hesitation. I’d gone so fast over that the video crew didn’t even get a chance to film my jump. You see, I’d already decided while sitting and watching my ex-husband that there was no way in hell I was going to peer down over the edge into the water below and allow fear to build. Uh uh. Not a chance.
So, from that true story, you can guess which of the two types of people I am. I was going to jump.
Funnily enough (as a quick nod to those who are horrified at the thought of doing it cold turkey), my twin sister had made the transition before me during the COVID lockdown via the grow-out method. She is quite attached to her long hair and wouldn’t dream of trying different or shorter hairstyles on her way to going gray. I totally respect that choice as being right for her. Personally, I get tired of my look regularly and change my hairstyle on a whim, so this wasn’t TOO drastic of a decision to make for me, I’ll grant you.
Another thing is that I believe in grand gestures and making great stories. So, I wasn’t just going to do this quickly and under the radar at some Great Clips on the weekend. Nope. It’s go big or go home in my book. And this huge transition deserved a spotlight and a ceremony.
This huge transition deserved a spotlight and a ceremony.
I decided to take the plunge a couple of days before my 50th birthday. I searched the internet for ideas on how to make this transition special and meaningful. I also mentioned my plans during a sharing session at a spiritual retreat a few weeks before my big day. After the session, one of the spiritual teachers, Ms. Juliana Fox, told me that she did ceremonial hair cutting. I jumped at her offer of help, since there are no such things as coincidences, my friends!
Together we planned my transition ceremony. On the day of the cutting, I had about a half inch of white roots, having skipped a few root touchups in preparation for the event. Juliana came to my house, spent some time listening to what this event meant to me, and then she cut off my hair.
I’ll admit, I freaked out after looking in the mirror. It was a shock, no matter how prepared I thought I was.
Juliana, God bless her soul, shared Reiki with me to ease me over the shock. We worked through it together. Then I took my shorn locks out to the backyard, and I buried them under my apple tree. I said a fond goodbye to my young self, thanking her for the great times, the growth, and the lessons. And then I planted a flower on top and thanked my crone (my older self) for joining me with her greater wisdom, vision, and grace.
And then, I drank some wine, LOL. And went on a camping trip with my twin so we could celebrate our 50th anniversary (aka birthday) together, just she and I, our gray hair, and the loons. What a way to spend a milestone birthday, am I right??
Since that transition day, a day so sacred and meaningful to me, I haven’t looked back. Well, in the early days, I was tempted twice to go back to dying my hair but that was only because I was still trying to date and realized that I was getting less attention on the dating apps, no surprise. So, I stopped dating because I refuse to hide my true self in order to be acceptable to another. The only love affair I need to have is with myself!
The only love affair I need to have is with myself!
As of this writing, it’s been 15 months since I went gray. Sure, I’m saving money and effort, and my hair is healthier (all reasons why others have decided to take this path), but the real reason I went gray is because of self-love. I have no desire to conceal any part of who I am. I have earned the right to feel comfortable in my wonderful body and to feel beautiful, even if no one else thinks I am.
And you know what? These days, I get WAY more compliments than I ever received before. I’ve been complimented for my very short pixie cut (shown below) by teenagers and I’ve been complimented by women my age for my longer, curlier styles. And I have been complimented by a few men. But the greatest thing about it all is the self-honoring of all that I am. I feel really, truly, authentically myself for the first time in my life and that’s an incredible feeling!
Going gray wasn’t just about owning my natural hair color. It was about defending myself and my right to be whatever it is that I am. It was about putting myself first and to hell with anyone who couldn’t get on board with that. In middle age, we’re gifted with the wisdom to see how flimsy the reasons to conform really are. There’s no peace in pleasing others if it’s at the expense of being true to ourselves. We’ve earned the right to do what we want with our bodies and to be comfortable in our own skins. And we deserve gentleness, especially from ourselves.
