I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
March 7, 2009
>
I’ll never forget my first gray hair.
While killing time before my first-ever job interview for a TV news reporter position in podunk Toccoa, Georgia, I did a last-minute check in my sun visor’s mirror- and that’s when I saw it.
A silver hair, sproinging out of my neat newsgirl coif.
I gasped, plucked the hair out of my scalp with a ping, and stared at it uncomprehendingly. I was only 21! It had to be due to the stress of moving back in with my parents for six months after college graduation! That or the manager at my part-time job at Borders. What a turd.
I digress.
Carefully, I placed the gray hair in the center well of my car. I’d keep it forever. Maybe it would even get a page in the scrapbook I was sure to create for myself some day- the one that would start with my first job interview in Toccoa, Georgia and end with a huge picture of me ON THE TODAY SHOW. (And, while life has taken some unexpected twists and turns since that time, I do in fact have that picture- although as it turns out, I’m wearing a freaking Snuggie in it… *sigh*).
Twelve years later, the scrapbook has yet to be made and the gray hair is lost and gone forever.
But don’t fret about me. As the old saying goes, THERE ARE PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM.
Yes, I’m afraid 33 will forever be known as the year I moved my newspaper column to the Nashville City Paper, began co-hosting Backtalk… and started going gray for realz.
Because truth be known, I didn’t see a whole lot more gray between 21 and 31, although that could have had as much to do with my predilection for hair dye as it did with genetics. Occasionally, I’d see a silver strand among the brown, yank it out, and go on with my life.
But by the time I got pregnant with Bruiser two years ago, times had begun changing. Plucking gray hairs had turned into a sort of hobby; I mean, I could always find at least one hair, or… ahem… five, if I looked hard enough. I began using my tweezers and meticulously rid my hairline of grays every few months or so.
Within the last six months, though, it’s gotten to the point where tweezing may no longer be such a good idea. I do want to have some hair left on my head, after all. The time has come to face facts: I’m going to have to shop for hair dye that “covers those stubborn grays”- or reap the consequences.
And I certainly don’t want to reap the consequences. I know them all too well, courtesy of a few blasts from the past via Facebook. Over and over, I’ve come across pictures of classmates from high school and college, only to click on their profile picture and be horrified by….
ALL THAT GRAY.
To be fair, it’s mostly the guys who’ve fallen prey to the grey. The girls are generally more likely to have befriended Feria. And even though my former non-dyed classmates’ faces are still relatively unlined, the graying hair around their temples is making them look… old.
OLD.
And I’m sorry, but 33 is too young to look old.
In a small way, I suppose, my response to the exponential growth of my gray hairs and those of my friends is a metaphor for the way I end up coming to terms with my own mortality. I’ve passed the stage of “Denial” and now have entered… sarcasm.
What I mean is that my graying hair is making me realize that time is fleeting. Gather ye rosebuds while ye aren’t gray.
And if ye are gray and ye are under, say, 45? For God’s sake, GET YE TO A PROFESSIONAL COLORIST.
This post originally appeared on Parents.com.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.