That’s right. Despite being 28, I might as well join the damned AARP now.
My friend who is going through beauty school cut my hair a few months ago, and said she found gray hair. I freaked out, of course, but I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I had the whole “no way, she was seeing things” mentality.
Alas. I can pretend no longer. I was sitting in my car and in my review mirror I saw it. Hair that looked gray. I moved in for the kill, and plucked it right out. I was hoping it was a trick of the sunlight, I’ve thought I’ve seen some before after all but it turned out to be just a trick of the light.
Well, the trick is on me. I have in front of me, sitting on this desk at work, a fully and completely gray hair that used to reside on my scalp. The frontish part, almost bang material. And yes, I am aware of the pluck it and x more will grow in its place. But…I guess I needed proof.
I know its tradition in my family to go gray young. My sister (4 years older than I) has been dying her hair for, well, a decade at least, and my mom dies her hair often as well. My mom’s dad went gray by the time he was 30. My dad, now he went bald from what I remember, but on the moms side everyone goes gray.
I’ve have pretty thick hair – not worried about the bald part. But gray. I’ve got a gray hair sitting in front of me at my desk, mocking me.
I’m old.
You know, my 10 year high school reunion was Saturday. I didn’t go because, well, why bother. But two days after a high school reunion (really? I’m old enough for those now?) I pluck my first gray hair.
I’m fully expecting my AARP membership packet to arrive in the mail anyday now.
Age is so much more than a number. Age is how you feel. I’ve always felt a lot older than my age, in large part due to everything I had to deal with growing up. (Dad dieing when I was 10 and the family fallout to that, for example.) But I’m reaching the point where, just. AHH! I can’t even think of words to describe it right now.
I used to have to train people my age or older at my job. Now, they are all younger than me. Born in years I remember. Sure, we may be part of the same generation, BUT I HAVE GRAY HAIR NOW. I’m not just feeling older than my age now…I’m feeling old.
So, goodbye youth. You’re now in the review mirror, and in its place, it’s just gray hair I see.
I should take this gray hair home and burn it.
Wait until your niece or nephew goes to college if you REALLY want to feel old !
Actually, I can sympathize with the sudden onset of feeling old (I find I notice the ageing at odd times, such as this weekend at a pool party when I didn’t even take my bathing suit out of the car, or when I hear songs from the ’80s, or later, called “oldies”—“oldies” are pre-Beatles, everyone knows that!), but for me it wasn’t grey hair: I found my first in High School, and started dying my own hair when I was about your age (27, if I remember), which I did for 13 years until it was no longer worth the trouble (one is “allowed” grey hair at 40ish). Of course, growing out foot-long grey hair was interesting; the “roots” creep down your head, to your eyebrows, then nose, chin, shoulders—finally you can cut them off and have hair of only 2 colors: more salt than pepper!
Anyway, sympathy FWIW and welcome to a whole new bunch of pleasures!
Ah! the milestones! I had a few scattered gray hairs by 25 and a definitely lengthening forehead. But I didn’t think too much about it because my best friend in high school already was about 1/2 gray in high school already. Instead, my age-awareness moment came at age 30.
I was riding Japan’s Shinkansen (Bullet Train) north to Tokyo. On the way I went to the restroom. Afterward I was washing my hands at a sink that was positioned across the aisle from another sink, looked into the mirror in front of me and saw the reflection of some gaijin (foreigner) behind me with a huge bald spot at his crown. Not having seen any other persons of clear European heritage on the train, I said to myself, who’s that bald gaijin? turned around, and saw my own face in the mirror across the aisle.
It is a weird feeling!
Welcome to the next step, Matt! But don’t be overanxious to sign up with AARP. Before you know it, they’ll be flooding your box with junk mail.
My hair hasn’t magically become un-gray. Prayer doesn’t work for everything.
I do understand the suddenly feeling old. I had that problem earlier this year when I realized that I measure my life in decades. As in, this important event in my life happened a DECADE ago.
That said, I had gray hair a decade ago, and I’m younger than you are. My gray hair is awesomely metallic silver, and if it wasn’t that I have a hair stylist friend who thinks of my scalp as a personal canvass, I’d be all about going gray.
Andie,
Wait until those decades add up—as in OMG, high school was 4 decades ago! I’ve been out of college for 3 decades!
The flip side is when you attend a workshop on being an activist at a “Global Green” exposition and the panelists ask you the next day if you are planning to attend again, as your comments from the audience were very helpful (having been through a lot of what the audience were asking), and then, when you say you were planning to attend a Board of Utilities supervisor speech instead, they say “More than here, we need you there, speaking up”. Then, your age/experience makes you feel great!
Look on the bright side Matt.
At least you still have bangs. . .