Hair: Orange or Black

Every other month or so, I get to thinking I need to do something about the crunchy, unruly gray hairs that I have been plagued with for half my life. I must say, the past few years have seen quite a few more grays emerging, which makes it even more necessary to do SOMETHING about them. I don't really mind it so bad, I mean, it doesn't hurt or anything, but the world minds, and most people don't mind telling you they spot your big ugly flaw. When I start to feel like it is making me look 40 instead of the whippersnapper 35 that I am, I zip down to the store, and begin the task of choosing the new color of the month. My goal, while rarely met, is to find a color that mimics that of my youth, but normally what happens is a look of a person trying to recapture their youth instead, which never works out. I have been black, red, and even a weird orange headed many times, and while often, it is tolerable, about 1 out of 5 times, I am left holding the box up to my head wondering what the hell happened! Right now, in an effort to not look old, I instead look like I am going to join a vampire cult. Medium brown, uh, is more like, um, darkest brown possible. I hate gray hair, mostly because of the horrible texture, but I wish the color was more acceptable. I hate my hair, my wrinkles, my stretch marks, my cellulite, my fat rolls, my old lady teeth, and all my older saggier thingies, but why do I listen to the voice of the world for all the reasons to hate myself, and shut out the world when I am looking for reasons to love myself? I am constantly on a mission to see people I know and compare their faces and bodies to mine for comfort or contemplation. Often it is more like a hurt-good because not everyone looks old yet, and many are self motivated to exercise, unlike me. I swear looking at old friends is like touching the sore end of a fingernail that has been clipped too close. You hate it, but keep messing with it anyway wincing every time you cause yourself pain. Yes, gray hair is ugly, and just keeps being there, wrinkles just get worse, and the rest of this shit is just waiting to die, but I feel like all my efforts are for everyone else, and only serve to make me feel like a circus freak half the time. I don't want to look old, but I am starting to realize that the choices of bozo the clown red, I want to suck your blood black, I want to suck something besides your blood platinum, and everything unnatural in between, are not helping us look like spring chickens. There is even something kind of "old lady" and crazy about a bad dye job. I inevitably miss a few streaks in the back too, which looks especially nice when you go quite a bit darker than last time. Not exactly highlights when it is on one side and only in the back. Most of the people I know who insist on coloring, or in some cases, removing color, go too far, and think they are really looking chic. It does not look natural ladies, and, like I said, the more unnatural, the more desperate and straw graspish we look. I think there comes a point where hiding or disguising things starts to age us more than the dread thing we are hiding or disguising does. You can just see Daffy duck standing in front of a large door, arms and legs splayed, saying "There isn't anything old or unattractive in here!". When I see someone who has obviously bleached or overly dyed their hair, I immediately think of hookers and the kind of nut jobs on Rock of Love, or people who were pretty when they were younger, but have aged, and can't live with it. You can not hide it when you are 35 instead of 25, or 60 instead of 40, so we should look the best we can for our age without going overboard. I am wanting the natural look to be in style whatever your age. Remember perms? Who do you know that those worked out for every time?? that's right, a bad fad, just like bleaching and dying. It is hard to let go of the things we "think" look good on us. Habit I suppose. It's a good thing we didn't get so hung up on tight rolling the bottoms of our jeans, right? I don't know why I keep doing it, dying, not tight rolling, I never think it looks good on anyone else either. You know, sometimes my gray hair is screaming to be noticed, sometimes my stretch marks peek out from under my shirt, my wrinkles get more pronounced in this damned dry weather, and saggy things? don't even get me started. Please love me the way I am. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to love myself without other people noticing my flaws too. Can't we just pretend we don't see these things? Besides, I was hotter than hell, too, when I was 19 and 20, ask my husband, I bet he remembers, and would probably remember the old me as fondly as I do.