future me -- fierce

​Maybe not dying my hair would be as bold as jumping out of an airplane which I would never do, terrified, but it would be my way of being bold, walking down the street gray-haired and feeling beautiful. It would be my way to rebel against … the culture? Aging? Probably death. Maybe it would be my way of facing death.
 
I think about dying all the time, and I think about not dying my hair anymore all the time. I've been doing it since my early 30's. I keep looking at pictures of women on line who look beautiful and have gray hair, wondering if that could be me, or will I just be a hag, a crone, gone, past. Dying my hair feels like I’m trying too hard and I try too hard at so many things, maybe this could be one thing I don’t have to try too hard at. It used to be easy, it used to be I had beautiful hair and I did nothing to it, I just had it, something I could count on. Always complimented on my hair and I could look up at the sky and sigh and feel a little guilty and weird for having something good and also smug and happy that I had something good.
 
We’re in the middle of a pandemic and I’ve still been dying my own hair every three weeks. My husband helps me. That gray stripe that starts to appear is humiliating – an insistent reminder of the passage of time. I’M HERE, nothing you can do, but keep hiding --  hiding a big secret, a big lie, a big something. I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to be free, but I’m afraid. I want to stop fixing and just be. But who gets to do that?
 
I made a pact this week with my 22 year old daughter to stop dying my hair in ten years. She already has some grays that stand out against her dark hair. When she’s 32 and wants to dye her hair and I’m … much older, we agreed she wouldn’t start and I would stop! Ten more years? We’ll see.

---

Instagram filter hair