My Journey with Cushing’s disease
At 30 years old, I was fit, healthy and naturally a size 8–10. I knew my body well, which is why, when it started to
At the beginning of the movie New Moon, Bella looks into a mirror expecting to see her beautiful, young face staring back at her. But the person looking back at her is old, gray (grey), and wrinkly. This shocking revelation horrifies her, and she fights to wake from her nightmare.
Getting old happens in the blink of an eye, or at least seems to physically. Beauty standards in today’s world abhor weight gain, silver heads, and sagging skin.
However, for many, the process of becoming old and gray begins in early adulthood, sometimes earlier. The reality is, the standards are not realistic; they are like the filters on social media demonstrating an expected attainment of something that doesn’t naturally exist.
Our bodies scream the truth of what beauty really is. Our minds tell us we are young far longer than the mirror does, but instead of despairing when faced with our reflection, I believe it’s time we saw aging as beautiful.
All encompassing beauty is in the eye of the beholder—us. We are the only ones who know who we are, and what makes us feel beautiful, vibrant, and free. In this article, I want to share a little about my own journey towards embracing my age and natural appearance.
The older I get the more I realize that beauty is more about how I feel, than how I look. Pictures don’t always do justice, and when they do it has more to do with lighting, color, and accentuation than actual features.
One thing I absolutely REFUSE to do is measure my beauty and worth by the standard of how attractive others find me. This has taken me a long time to put into practice, but it started with learning to love myself at any weight, and breaking up with food addiction because I don’t want to be controlled by anything or anyone. It continued with a decision that I am still living out, and I have to say adoring, which is to stop dying my hair.
“Premature gray” has run in my family for generations. It has been said to me that my grandmother was basically gray by 18. My mother, by her early 20’s. My first grays appeared to me in my early to mid 20s, but I have been coloring my hair since I was 16.
I put the words premature gray in quotation marks because someone experiencing gray hair before their time is a myth. Gray hair comes when it is ready to come and we can embrace it or not; it is our choice.
I chose to hide it, and hide from it, for years until I finally decided I’d had enough. Enjoying freshly colored hair for all of one week, only to have gray roots reappear, and having to color every three weeks was controlling my life and wallet.
I have always been extremely fair skinned. Freckled with green-hazel eyes and my “natural” hair color was a medium brown. When I began to experiment with color, I quickly discovered red hues worked great with my skin and eyes, and helped dispel the teasing I got as a Florida girl without a tan.
I spent the next 25 years of my life identifying as a redhead. The quest to get my hair to the perfect shade of red was complicated, time consuming, and expensive.
As the grays took over, I finally settled on a strawberry blonde, and kept that till I accidentally messed it up. The last two years of my hair coloring phase were spent with bright red locks that I tried to own, but never did feel represented me as a person.
I finally realized that allowing my gray hair to grow freely and letting go of the unrealistic expectations I had for myself was the only way I was going to embrace myself in all my glory. I felt like a terrified badass.
As the silver strands flow and push the last bits of color out, my personality rushes in with them. I am experimenting with colors and styles in my clothing, and pushing the limits of what society expects of me.
I have flooded my social media feed with others who are embracing their gray. Surrounding myself with the images and voices of other women who are allowing their natural beauty shine through their white, charcoal, and silver manes. Their refusal to let their hair color define their age inspires me to push forward on the days I feel old.
The only things that have faded in my life were as artificial as the glaring red locks I painted on before: unrealistic ideals of beauty, tying hair color to identity, and allowing others’ opinions dictate my choices. Every day I marvel at how much I love even the two toned look of my hair as it lengthens. It represents the real me showing up and taking up space in ways I was too frightened to do before.
For me, continuing to color my hair left me at the mercy of a schedule and financial obligations. It was holding me back instead of empowering me.
I was afraid to stop because I didn’t want to look older, but living that way made me feel older. I felt as if the new growth of gray at the root of my hair was a giant highlighter proclaiming to the world my “true” age.
In reality, the gray of my hair, when allowed to emerge, garnered compliments like “Wow, I love your hair!” and “You look too young to have gray hair!” I was flabbergasted, and I leaned into it hard core.
In the end, what I thought was what actually mattered, and that thought led me to do something that proved my past fear was unnecessary. Now, I am more confident, my hair is healthier than it has been in 10 years or more, and I have time and money to do things that are way more fun than spending hours trying to cover my gray.
Through the process of going gray I have discovered the beauty that is me. It’s not the way I look, the way I feel, or the way I show up in the world. It is all of those things together.
When I look at my children, I see my beauty. When I look at them, I see the color I created in this world reflected back at me.
When I write I see the beauty that my mind has conjured and each word reflects who I am in a billion rainbow shards reflected like prisms in the sunlight. Hopefully they provide the world with a peak to my innermost thoughts in a way that brings encouragement and inspiration.
When I dress and go about my day, the interactions I have and the lessons learned bring colorful memories and stories to my mind for the rest of my life. None of these things have anything to do with my hair. Unless, the color of my hair also is an expression of who I am.
We are more than merely decorative, we are a multifaceted explosion of miraculous and infectious pigmentation that brings life into the darkness.
Am I being dramatic? Yes! Welcome to my world!
The point is: beauty is the whole of our beings and what they bring to the world. Embracing ourselves and each other, and how we chose to represent ourselves is powerful.
If you color your hair because you want to, it makes you feel good, and it is a way to express yourself, I think that is awesome! If you only do it because you are afraid not to, or how you will feel about yourself if you stop, please reconsider. There is immense freedom in this journey!
Also, it’s just hair. It grows out, and it takes all the abuse we give it with incredible resilience. If you don’t like your gray, then you can always go back to color.
You are beautiful. The beauty you bring to this world comes through every part of you. Make sure what you do, what you wear, and how you fix your hair reflects YOU.
Here are some Instagram accounts I have followed that have inspired and encouraged me. Maybe they could be of help to you as well.
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