So why am I talking about hair. In my family we go grey at a very young age. I started getting grey hair in my late teens and continued to gain grey hairs during my twenties. When I married my hubby I was mostly brown as you can see. However, by the time I reached 30 I had a considerable number of grey hair and I was OK with it. It was natural for my family and it didn’t bother me.
Then one day I was chatting with one of the mums at my daughter’s schools and she said that I was too young to have grey hair. At this time I was around 35. It surprised me as I had never really considered that I looked old. But now someone had said something I couldn’t un-hear it. However, I was always really reluctant to go to the hairdressers. At the age of 18 I had blonde streaks put in, however it went horribly wrong and I ended up with weird greenish splurges. Since then I was scared to go back again.
The problem is that over the coming years the number of grey hairs continued to grow. Each time I went back to the hairdresser the ratio of brown to grey hair kept changing. The number on the right getting bigger than the number on the left each time I visited. The other issue is that the contrast between brown and grey is quite pronounced so as my hair grew my roots became more obvious. This meant very regular visits to the hairdressers and use of home treatments when they became too much.
Here is me from one of my visits with Beckie.
Problem was that my hubby kept telling me he married a brunette, not sure he really like me being blonde. So during Covid and being forced to let my hair grow out I decided maybe it was time to embrace my grey hair and bite the bullet and go grey. I was now in my 50s so surely it is OK to be grey. I had loads of support and supportive comments and I felt good. Even the young said it looked good. But something kept niggling at me. I looked in the mirror and felt that my hair simply disappeared into the background. This made me feel like I was disappearing. That I couldn’t be seen and was fading, like my hair, into the background.
But I am not writing this to say that grey is bad and that people should dye their hair to remove them. Just the opposite. It is about being who you feel is you. About making you feel good whether that is embracing the grey or not. Whatever colour you want to be it’s fine. Nobody has the right to judge.
Something that pissed me off this week is the vile comments that people on social media feel they have the right to make. Sarah Jessica Parker has had many vile comments about her reluctance to follow the Hollywood expectation that meant that she should dye her hair and wear make-up and be perfect every time she steps outside her door. If that’s what she wants to do then we should all respect that. We should celebrate everyone’s right to be individual and to be who they want to be. I have said this before that we as women are our own worse enemy. We are so judgemental of anyone that is not following the norms and we need to learn to be more accepting. Dior posted a picture of Queen Camilla in a stunning long blue dress with an attached cape. She looked lovey and happy and obviously in love with her husband. Over 55,000 people liked the post, but I noticed a lot of comments for an instagram post. And they were mostly vile. How she looked ugly, that she had no right to be queen, that Queen Diana is the true queen etc. It was unbelievable, what gives people the right to make these comments. I know people will say that everyone has the right to their opinions, but should they have the right to make those views public. How do they think this is going to make individuals feel? I do wonder that if people are not willing to say their opinion to someone’s face, maybe they shouldn’t post it on social media.
Anyway, celebrate who you are and what makes you happy and feel good. We should all celebrate our right to be individuals.
Thanks
Lois
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