One of my bigger fears as I get older is not “dressing my age” because there’s no one creepier than the lady who looks twenty-two from the blinged-out, back pockets on a seven-times-a-week gym butt until BAM! grandma turns around to say hello.
I’m not so worried about my wardrobe at the moment, but as I turned 35, I thought: It is time. Time to go back to brown, act-my-age, hair.
I’ve always liked the natural color of my hair, but I went grey very early (first hair was at 24 years old!). While I’m not a fan of dressing too young, neither did I want to look two or three decades older than I am. But when the grays finally got to be too much, dyeing my hair brown was so boring, and it was impossible to match my natural color. I figured if I had to go in every few months, I might as well have fun.
I debated how to do that until two years ago when my family came home to a mom full of blue-green hair highlights.
It’s still my favorite look.
I’ve also had purple hair, red hair and many versions in between although I don’t do a full head of highlights anymore because that takes way too many hours. (I still think it looks the best though.)
Just before making my September hair appointment, I told my 7-year-old son that I was going back to brown.
His face dropped: WHY MOM?
We didn’t talk much about my hair so I was surprised: You like my colors?
My son gentle stroked my faded blue streak: Yeah.
The fact is I like them, too. It’s more fun to color my hair red than brown. Maybe it’s more fun to wear rhinestones on a gym-butt than it is to find granny jeans.
Perhaps the idea of dressing my age has more to do with perception than reality. I’m not actually trying to recapture my youth with a few streaks of colorful hair. I just like it, and it turns out the people that matter to me like it, too. If a stranger on the street is appalled or confused or offended, my hair becomes another opportunity for me to remember that I am a grown up not a teenager. I don’t have to care what random people think anymore especially of something as inconsequential as hair.
PS. I know there could be a conflict around “being myself” by dyeing my hair pretty colors and admitting that I am dyeing my hair to not show grays. When I was young, I would’ve pointed my finger and yelled hypocrite or not admitted to why I first started dyeing my hair. Being human was too muddy for me. But the fact is that being myself means I am conflicted and confusing. I’m not ready to go gray even at 35 years old, and I’m not wearing colorful streaks in my hair to prove some sort of rebellious point. I like it so I do it, and I was going to stop doing it for the wrong reasons.
PPS. Maybe I’ll dye silver streaks one day so I can learn to like my grays.
PPPS. I know not everyone can dye their hair because of their jobs. Settle down, people. You can do something else like wear cutoff sleeve-less shirts on the weekends.
