Old and Gray, Sad Trombone, Sad Panda, Whatever

I've been thinking about how to write about this for a while now.  I think maybe it's going to take a few posts to get it done.  But you have to start somewhere.

I'm motivated this morning by this video:

This is Ali McGraw.  She played Jennifer in the 1970 movie Love Story.  I still haven't seen it.  My mom says that's where she got the idea for my name (along with 3 gajillion other women, apparently.  If you throw a dart into a room full of late-30s white women, you have a 90% chance of hitting someone named Jennifer).  She's talking to Oprah about aging.

Full disclosure:  I love Oprah.  I always have.  I have a PhD and critical faculties and loads of cynicism, but I still get O Magazine every month and once paid money to see Oprah speak.  She's done a lot of good in the world and she's one of my heroes.

Anyhoo, I like this interview a lot because I've been thinking about aging a lot lately.  Because this:

Not a great picture, right?  I've got several big pimples on my face because sometimes that just happens at 39.  No surprise there.  I don't have any makeup on, my hair isn't done, the lighting sucks, no filters, and yep.  That is a whole lot of silver there framing my face.

Because I've decided to stop coloring my hair.

That fact makes some of you recoil.  I know, because it used to make me recoil.  I pretty faithfully have had my hair colored since my 20s.  I used to be able to go a few months between colorings, but lately it was getting to be more like every four weeks, with a box of color thrown in to tide me over between appointments.

But enough.  It's been 8 weeks.  This is what it looks like.

I tried this growing out the gray once before, about a year ago, and made it two weeks before I freaked out and went to get my highlights did.

But this year, with us worried more about money--my husband was out of work for a whole year, until recently--and with me feeling fed up with any situation in which I can't totally be myself (I'm not sure where that is coming from, but there it is) I am growing it out.  I'm totally silver--like Christopher Walken silver--on the sides.  I call it my gangster wings.  I think I'm salt and pepper everywhere else, but who the hell knows.

So you're going to see me in person and in photos here and my hair is going to be all sorts of colors and there will be days I'm fine with it and days it pisses me off.  Because I can be pretty ambivalent about "aging."

I love what McGraw says when she's talking to the Opester, though--what kind of message are we sending to women in their 30s and 40s about life?  That it's "almost over" when you hit 40 because you're aging?  And why must I spend all this time and money on "maintenance"?  What am I maintaining?  And finally, I don't look like the young women of Instagram, no matter how much money or time I spend, so why am I trying?  Do I want to look "homogeneous" anyway?  Or do I want to be my interesting self?  Which makes me feel better?

The answer is that stopping feels better.  I still love my makeup.  I still love clothes.  But more and more I just let my hair do its wavy thing and its silvery thing and most of the time it just feels good and exciting and like a big effing relief.

There will be some posts that come up where I whine about the "skunk stripe" and people assuming I'm my (absurdly young looking) husband's mom and about toddlers calling me "Grandma," I assure you.  But this is the first attempt to be open and public and untouched and unfiltered.

Because in every other respect?  Getting older is awesome.  And I'd rather move forward with awesome than in fear.

***obligatory no shame qualifier:  if you color your hair, NO judgment implied.  You can still be authentic and awesome and happy and color.  I just wanted to voice a different perspective.