What Going Gray Has Taught Me about Women’s Sense of Self-regard
And how it’s preparing me for getting older.
One year ago, I decided to stop coloring my hair because I hated having to get it done every three weeks. The tyranny of it was driving me mad.
Going gray was a stupidly difficult decision, “stupidly” because it’s entirely irrelevant to anything of importance, and “difficult” because I’m vain, and how I look to myself, and others affect my sense of self.
My sense of self-regard is why I started coloring my hair in my mid-twenties. I needed to hide that early gray because the color meant old, and old meant ugly, and by God, I would be neither.
I haven’t stopped caring about how others judge my looks, even if, at 54, I care just a little less. At this point, I find myself more interested in (or at least equally interested in) people’s opinions about my going gray.
The comments on the dozen gray transition Instagram posts I’ve shared over the past year reveal a few fascinating trends. When my still brown-haired self first shared her intention to stop coloring, responders for and against it were evenly split. Here are some of the comments I got:
Nooooooo
Try it.
Do it.
