Gray.

Let's talk about gray hair today.

I have a lot of it.

First I plucked it.  Then when I got more, each pluck hurt my heart as I thought, "God made me this way, and I'm actively disapproving."  Then I got pregnant.  And I nursed for a year.  And 4 weeks later, I was pregnant again.  Nursed a year.  And knowing baby #3 was in our heart's plans, I just watched the gray come in for four months... then got pregnant again!

Now I'm three months away from being done with body sharing, which would technically make me ready and willing to cover my head in chemicals.  Every time I go to the grocery store, I stand in the aisle and consider throwing a box of brown in the cart.

I did, in fact, do just that before my husband's graduation from OCS.  Being exhausted from single parenting during his few months away, I just really wanted to feel pretty and human at his formal.  I didn't want to feel like the mom of three kids under five.  So, I dyed my hair a week before.  Well, guess I should say I lightly combed through about 2 quarter sized dabs of it just to barely maybe mask some of the gray.  I was nursing, after all.

But now I'm back to the debate.

I want to like myself just the way God made me.  I want to teach my children that the world's standards of beauty and youth-keeping are frivolous and impossible.  I want to feel beautiful and inspire others by my happy, at-peace heart, and embrace the gray and the wrinkles as proof of having lived well and rightly.

At the same time, I don't want to embarrass my children. I hate admitting this, but I distinctly remember being in middle school and thinking, "She'd be sooo pretty if she would just dye her hair!" about a close relative.  I even calculated her age and made a promise to my teenage self that if I started to get gray hairs by then, I would surely dye them.  I thought, "Does she not KNOW? I must pay attention!  I refuse to 'let myself go!' just because I'm married or have kids!"  I really don't want my children to be ashamed that I'm their mom because of how I look.

(I do realize that I have the opportunity by having gray hair to explain to my children my choice in it.  If I embrace it, perhaps that will empower them.  Or... it may just make them less likely to have friends over or go to the mall with me. :(  I also acknowledge that they'll probably find plenty other reasons to be embarrassed by me, even if I had the most gorgeous hair in the world.)

I've really struggled in this city.  It has been harder than I want to admit to make friends (there will be another post about that later), and sometimes, I feel like I would have done better if  I had highlights and manicured nails and pretty spring scarves. I very much fear moving to a new city and having to make friends, only to be instantly excluded because I don't look right.  Lawd knows I'm awkward enough without having a head full of gray hairs to wonder about at first meeting. I really, really need friends, and I don't want the lost pigment in my hair to close doors before anyone has the chance to see my winning personality. ;)

My husband is sweet.  He calls me beautiful no matter what, and just keeps saying that he'd much rather go gray than bald.  Not exactly helpful in decision-making since gray hair on a woman is the equivalent of a man with no hair... but he doesn't understand that.

So... yeah.  I don't know what to do.  The practical side of me has been leaning toward dying until my baby girl gets married... unless I hit 60 first.  (I'm definitely allowed to have gray hair at 60, no matter what my children are doing!)  Then, I stand in the aisle at Kroger thinking "Thirty years? I'm going to be dying my hair for *thirty years.*  This is lunacy!" and keep walking.

I'm thirty.  And I'm going gray.  Our culture would definitely consider that premature.  I just wish, in the deep recesses of my heart, that I could accept it, be confident in it and feel that instead of being early, it's at "just the right time." 

But I don't have that peace.  Or that wisdom. Or that confidence. And if it comes from within, that leaves me without much beauty, either.