True Courage
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”” –Eleanor Roosevelt
I have lived through my own private horror. I have looked fear in the face and lived to tell the tale, emerging stronger and more resilient than ever.
I have stopped dyeing my hair.
Am I worthy of praise? Yes, I am. At least according to several strangers. Over the past year I have joined other brave women and eschewed my usual hair dye, choosing instead to go gray.
My favorite “compliment” was: “You are so courageous to let yourself go out in public like that! I could never be that brave!” I replied that I’m not battling cancer or going off to war, I’m just NOT running to CVS to pick up a box of Performing Preference 6 ½ G. At that point, I was rocking a head of hair that was half white/half brown. I looked as if someone had turned me upside-down and dipped my head in a vat of brown dye, leaving 3” of roots white. A very odd combination, not remotely attractive but hardly courageous.
Others simply asked why I was doing this to myself, as if reverting back to my natural hair color was akin to self-abuse.
I had a few cheerleaders too: co-workers and my family loved my new look, an excitable waitress told me “You’re my hero!”, and the young barista at my local coffee shop told me I look stunning. Sincere or not, I appreciated the attention.
My husband has been nagging me to stop dyeing my hair for years—he was tired of the gelatinous blobs of hair dye on the back of the bathroom door, not to mention the pungent smell and my insistence that he help me with the bimonthly ritual. He would rush the job, incessantly complaining of the tiny cheap rubber gloves, the fumes and the nasty chemicals that I was absorbing into my skull, while I yelled “You missed a spot! Work it INTO the roots! The temples! The temples!”
I was weary of the cost and the mess, and my hair never really looking right. I’d often get lazy and end up dyeing the side of my face nearest my hairline, or I’d use the tiny can of “root touch up” spray-paint, fail to control it correctly and spray paint my ear instead. Very sexy. Other times I’d forget to set the timer and wonder why my scalp was sizzling… oops. Hair dye really shouldn’t be on your scalp for an hour.
I started dyeing in college. Early on it was fun to experiment with different colors: blonde, dark brown, black, auburn, and during one unfortunate summer, I eerily resembled Sophie Masloff.
The only other time I went “natural” is during my first pregnancy, 21 years ago. I was the quintessential first-time mom: eating all organic, natural foods, shunning caffeine and alcohol, embracing all the right things while avoiding all the fun things. Hair dye was a definite no-no. My roots came in with lovely gray streaks, just enough to notice, but not so much that it was obvious.
This time was different. My roots were WHITE. Anderson-Cooper-white. Meryl-Streep-Devil-Wears-Prada-white. Ted-Baxter-white. Bright, glaring, unforgiving white. There was no mistake that I was going to look older when it had all grown out. And for a while it would be quite weird. And it was.
I tried to ignore the rare back-handed compliments, and ate up the kind ones. I took to Facebook, which is full of support groups of like-minded-women —”Silver Hair Don’t Care,” Silver Hair and Proud!”, “Silver Foxes,” “Silver Sisterhood,” “Silver Beautiful Ladies, (SBL),” “Going Gorgeously Gray!,” “Silver Revolution”, and the most mysterious group of them all—“Gray Hair Transition and Beyond.”
These women proudly posted photos of their journey, roots and all, and we cheered each other on to “trust the process.” I took comfort that I wasn’t alone with my awkward hair color that for a seemingly endless five months could most accurately be described as plaid.
After about a year, I had my first big chop. All my dye was cut off, along with any remnants of my youth. And it didn’t look that bad. Blindingly white, but not awful. I looked much older, but I doubt my former color was fooling anybody anyway. I wanted to be authentic. I tried to think of my white hair as a badge of honor and a blessing; some people don’t get the chance to grow old, why not embrace it?
I couldn’t help but think of my mom, who for as long as I can remember had a head of gorgeously thick, wavy white hair. Her hair color never bothered her, and while as a child I fumed and lashed out at store clerks who called her my grandma, she would laugh it off and scold me for correcting them. I’d like to think that as an adult she would be proud of my bucking the trend of youthfulness and being true to myself.
I am still occasionally jarred by the old woman staring back at me in the bathroom mirror, and a little bit tempted to return to CVS for just one more box of 6 ½ G.
But I think I will stay true to my roots. Just don’t call me Grandma.
Elizabeth is a freelance writer and lifetime Pittsburgher who resides in the North Hills. She has worked in adult literacy, at a financial investment firm, as a kindergarten teacher's aide, as a debt collector, and even as an entrepreneur. Her BA in English from the University of Dayton and her MBA from Duquesne University provide her with the unusual combination of being able to "cook the books" and also write a concise, grammatically-correct statement denying all wrongdoing. She is a winner of the 2020 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Bad Writing Contest. She finds humor in the everyday and can be reached at elizabethawiethorn@gmail.com.
