It's even worse than it appears, but, it's alright

I discovered my first gray hair when Child 1 was in his first few weeks. I've always felt the timing of that was rather suspect. Just had a baby and out pops a gray hair? How cliché.

I immediately summoned Hubs to come and pluck it out for me, which he did, and instantly I was young again. No longer plagued by The Gray I no longer had anything to worry about.

John, my hairdresser, told me that hairs grow out of your head gray, they don't turn gray after they've already grown. This means that this particular hair didn't appear after my child was born, it had been growing for a while and I just happened to notice it at that time. I'm still not sure I believe that, because what kind of powers of observation do you have with a 2 week old baby at home?

The weeks and months went by and every few of them I would continue to find the errant strand. Eventually I got good at pulling it out, myself (along with twenty of its regular colored neighbors) which I did, every time. And every time the youthful status quo was restored and all was right with my hair and the world.

I complained to John about the constant hunting through the strands and how annoying it was that they kept coming back again and again. John, who is a few years younger than me, very very straightforward, and whose hair is quite salt and pepper, told me "WAHHHHHHHHHH. You're 40 years old and you're complaining about the occasional gray? You're fucking LUCKY." Well that shut me right up.

Today I looked in the mirror and realized that there were just too many of them in there to pull. I couldn't get them all out, it just wasn't going to happen. This was when I realized that my hunt and pluck method was no longer going to work, I'm going to just have to let them in. These hairs are no longer occasional. I suppose I could dye, and maybe one day I will, but I've never dyed my hair before and I'm not entirely sure I want to start.

I guess I'm just going to have to accept this new reality, 11+ years after I'd spotted my first one. This is how my hair is now.

I'm going to have to start drawing myself differently, too, I guess.

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