Growing out my grey has been a lesson of patience. For the last couple of years, I used root touch up weekly and visited my hairdresser every three weeks. I finally got fed up with the constant dye/grow-out cycle and now it’s been 15 months since I decided to quit dying my hair and let my natural color grow in. This is a time for accepting who I am, just as I am.
Everyone told me it would make me look older. I wouldn’t like it. I was just never ready to really let it grow out and always let others “convince” me I was too young to go grey.
After months of indecision, I just stopped. The first 6 months were really difficult and so we (my hair stylist) tried coloring just the top, then the next time we (she) did a light weave to blend it in. My hairdresser “T” basically processed my anxiety about the whole ‘growing out my hair’ thing by talking through the stories of other women, researching all the methods that were used to help transition, and thinking in loops about what I was going to do to make this all end quicker. Should I bleach it? Should I dye it back? Should I cut it all off? If nothing was sounding appealing, then what did I have to lose by just being patient and seeing how I felt tomorrow. Just let it be.
So, here we are in quarantine. All of us waiting for information of when our lives will get back to some form of normal. Many of us filled with anxiety and not sure what this will mean for our lives. We keep researching and googling and trying to find the answer, and nothing is clear. So, all we are really left with is that we have to let it be. There may be tricky moments along the way and we may have a bumpy road to get there, but one day, not so long from now, I think we are all going to wake up to new, different, more patient versions of ourselves.
I’m growing out my colored hair to grey. It’s a process. Sometimes I feel anxious and not sure if I am making the right decision. I am starting to feel like myself. A new, different, more patient version of myself.
