From an early point in life we’re taught that physical appearances are essential to being happy (um, WRONG) and we’re constantly bombarded with examples every day of what beauty is and “should” be. Having gray hair, especially in the early quarter century of your life has always been perceived as a point of shame; a blemish in dire need of concealing. Never did I expect then, that at 24 years old my head would be home to an onslaught of gray hair. It seems like there’s a new one that pops up every single day. Each sprout becomes its own shock of silver amongst a sea of raven colored hair and arrives at the times I’m most stressed out. The petulant little grays become their own cause of fury alongside whatever other bull shit I’m going through to even cause them in the first place.
The grays began their initial attack on the sides of my head, opting at first to hide from public eye. Frantic about the arrival of the unwelcome guests, I fought relentlessly against the almighty powers of the parasitic guests. My tactics started out stealth and calculated: every day I would meticulously comb through my hair looking for the pesky varmints, a process so methodical that outsiders would certainly
assume the perpetrator du jour was in fact lice. The enemy would swiftly be removed upon discovery; defeated before he could stand a chance but they nonetheless slowly took over the territory. It began
to feel as though the rest of my hair was a defenseless little country and I their heroine: “No need to thank me, civilians, just doing my job.”
Inspired by Sun Tzu’s Art of War, I began to strike preemptively and with due force. My swift approach at extermination appeared to be rather fruitful. Around March of this year my stress levels were quelled as were the evil follicles that accompanied it.
Jubilant after months of a dormant enemy, my life took a change of course recently after my stress levels soared due to some roommate drama. It seemed, though, that the follicular enemy used the détente to recalculate their own tactics and instead of striking the nether regions of my scalp, they decided to hit where it hurts most: an arial assault to top of the crown.
All but defeated, mostly due to the emotional shit going on in my life, I opted to a break from my defense against the foreign color. This time off was not for naught. Nervous about the artificiality of consistently dying my hair, it was decided that was simply not the way to go. It’s bad enough when I’m hungover and globbing make up on my to hide my flaws.
One day during my extreme internal debate over further extraction tactics, I was visited on the subway by another raven haired vixen with similar follicular issues as I. It appeared, though, that she accepted a life of symbiosis with the seemingly evil invader. Was cohabiting with the enemy some crazy form of Stockholm Syndrome or just a way to tell society to suck it?
Given my overall attitude towards giving societal standards the middle finger, and completely inspired by my follicular soul sister from the subway, I decided that at 24 years old I will respectfully surrender to the enemy and begin to gray gracefully. Sun Tzu would probably put shame on me but… he’s dead and if you don’t like my gray hairs, well, you can simply bite me.
