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Embracing Gray: A Journey to Greater Self-Acceptance

A reflection on the natural aging process and the pressure to deny it

Brenda H.
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
4 min readNov 20, 2024

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The author is photographed with her naturally gray hair. The model in the background gives a side-eye to the resistance to hair color pressures. (Photo by my hair stylist, Lynn.)

To color or not to color — that is the question.

When I had no gray hair, I frequently colored it. Now that my hair is gray, I’ve stopped. That’s me: living life in reverse time order. Throughout my 20s and 30s, when I had the least expendable cash, I spent triple digits monthly keeping up with coloring and root maintenance. I didn’t give it much thought; it felt automatic. I’d acculturated to it, steeped in L’Oreal’s media message: “It costs a little more, but I’m worth it.”

Maybe this mentality took hold because, from a young age, I’ve had an old soul look. I’ve always appeared older than my age. When I was 13, I attended a church camp with a friend, and the other campers thought I was her mom. I felt mortified. Later, when I became a mom in my 30s, people often mistook me for my kid’s grandmother. If you start the math at 13, it makes sense — or at least it did to them. I resented this perception and began resisting the fuddy-duddy image that seemed to trail me.

By my 30s, I had started developing gray hair, so I began coloring in earnest. It became less about style and more about camouflage — a way to mask my age. Before then, coloring had been a trendy thing a…

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Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

Published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

Brenda H.
Brenda H.

Written by Brenda H.

A not-yet-60-year-old Texas transplant is making retirement plans for anywhere else but here. Educated by School of Hard Knocks. Today is Once in a Lifetime.

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