31 Things I learned in 2009-Day 19

What I learned: EMBRACE THE GREY

How I learned it: I take after my dad in a lot of ways. Mainly I look like him and I know I got his hair genes. My dad was 100% grey-headed by the age of 19. I was almost there by 24. Yuck. I've been dying my hair to cover the grey since I was 20. My brother-in-law, Brian, gave me some advice back then, "If you start dying your hair now, you'll never be able to stop." He was right. I really didn't want to be going grey or grey-headed in my 20's and 30's. Really not in my 40's either, but I have started to mellow to the idea. My grandmother's (on my dad's side), Minnie Mae, had the most beautiful head of white hair ever and I guess when I am 60 or 70 that will be ok, but now? No thanks! I did decided to just see how much grey was under the dye, so I went to the salon and asked for a streak of grey. Who knew they couldn't dye hair grey. I had to bleach it and die it blond and let the grey appear as it grew out. The neighbor hairdresser to the lady who did my hair just couldn't understand why I would choose to put grey in my hair. In fact, she was a bit of a creep about it. But I just told her that I was "embracing my grey". No idea what that meant to me, just like the way it sounded and it seemed to shut her up! The blond streak was cool and it looked kind-of hip, so I was really liking the way it turned out. Now all I had to do was wait for the grey to start to show. Then I was going to see just how much I liked this idea! I waited. It took awhile for it to really come in all the way and just before Christmas I cut my hair short, so that took care of the leftover blond patches! Now I have a 100% grey streak. I know that my hair is totally grey and guess what? I am fine with that. It is what it is and I really enjoy my grey streak. I guess that is what I meant by "embracing my grey". I am who I am-even if I choose to let only a tiny patch of my innerself show! It makes me chuckle when people say they like it and wonder how I dyed it grey! HA! I say that I didn't dye it I earned it! Now I just have to decide at what age do I take out the streak and go ALL grey?! gulp...