Going grey (again)
That’s me in the photo, on the 11th of July 2019, the day I decided to share publicly my going grey (again) journey. On the 12th of July I decided it was a daft idea and that nobody would want to read about a 54 year old woman’s issues around growing out her dyed bits. On the 13th of July I was chatting to a pal and she told me she was having a bad hair day and wondered why she cared so much about how her hair looks (‘why do we get so hung up on our hair?!’). I took that as a sign and started scribbling some notes. On the 14th of July I was out for a long run in the hills and I felt carefree, wild and excited about being grey and all natural and stuff. This is a plan!
On the 15th of July I was back to work after my holiday break and freaked out when I straightened my hair for the first time in two weeks. How could I possibly face clients with a tide line like this?!
(I did meet clients and nothing bad happened).
On the 16th of July I noted down some ideas in my journal:
“Maybe this could be more than an Instagram story or a few Medium articles! There might even be enough material for a book! I could write about my going grey (again) journey as a sort of underlying thread, but I could include chapters and verses on the history of our relationship with hair, why did the height and complexity of wigs become status symbols, how does the trauma of losing our hair through alopecia or medical treatments impact on our lives, why did we start dying our hair in the first bloody place, what role does how our hair looks play in different cultures, why are we sometimes all curly (the 1980s) and sometimes all straight (the 2000s), why do we have so many expensive ‘I need to try this as the hairdresser/my friend with amazing hair/the article in the magazine at the GP’s surgery told me to’ miracle products lurking at the back of our bathroom cupboards, how does it feel to never have dyed your hair and just how smug do you actually feel when all of your middle aged friends are lamenting about their ‘just can’t get the colour right’ and ‘wish I could just let it grow out, but it’ll look ridiculous — and I don’t know if I’m quite ready to go grey’ trials and tribulations?! So many angles! Who would’ve thought there would be so much to be said about hair?!”
On the 17th of July my hair was a state and I got so far as putting on the plastic gloves. Just in time I remembered a recent conversation with one of my coaching clients. ‘When you’re having one of those moments of feeling like you’re about to give up and give in to the old habit and it’s just too hard to stick to your intention, distract yourself, just for a moment. Change the groove. Substitute the ‘I want to do this’ thought with ‘I’m going to do this instead’. Put on an upbeat song and sing along to it, go for a walk, clear out a cupboard, phone a pal, delete some stuff from your phone that’s using up all your memory — anything at all, think of your own thing.’
I took off the gloves, stepped out of the bathroom, said “Alexa, play ‘Natural Woman by Aretha Franklyn’”, stepped back into the bathroom, stepped into Aretha’s shoes in the shower, sang loud and proud and felt determined again to be a natural hair colour woman! I can do this!
On the 18th of July I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and caught sight of the side of my head in the mirror. I saw that the shades and strands of hair were all uneven, with patches of silver, grey, black, auburn and yellow. I thought ‘that really looks a bit silly’. I also noticed my little patch of alopecia. I smiled and reminded myself, for the umpteenth time, that a tiny bit of hairlessness was a price well worth paying for a pregnancy and the little bundle of joy that followed, all those 28 years ago. (The episiotimy and the piles maybe not so much…). I held my multi-coloured head up high and headed out for my run.
And that brings me to today, the 19th of July, when I sat down in front of the computer and took the plunge. I’m putting myself out there, I’m hoping not to put any more dye in my hair. I might wobble and fret and change my mind. I’m going to shake things up a bit along the way; speak to other women, hear their particular hair issue stories and, with their permission, share them with you.
Maybe some of them will resonate. Or maybe you’ll learn something new. Maybe you’d like to contribute, share something of your own? Maybe we’ll build a community of like-minded ‘it’s only hair but I can’t help getting hung about it for this or that reason’ folk.
Whatever develops (and I sincerely hope it won’t be something that’s been mixed up from a bottle), I do hope you’ll hang around for the ride.
