Silver Balabusta

I found my second gray hair yesterday. Actually, it could be my first gray hair again, the as the first gray hair disappeared into the hair as a whole, and could not be found again. But second gray hair sighting at any rate.

The fella asked if I wanted him to yank it, but I declined. For the moment I am preserving it. It's an attractive color--my hopes of inheriting my grandmother's seriously silver hair seem to have some possibilities still. (However, the hair starts to go really salt-and-pepper in the forties and then takes about thirty years to reach its peak, so I have some time to go.)

On the one hand, there is the kind of excitement I remember from my period first beginning--and much less discomfort and embarassment. This is a new thing that my body can do, and it's kind of exciting. It's absolute proof of being a grown-up.

It opens a whole new set of questions. Will I dye it? Will I start yanking out the gray ones? How fast is it going to go? Will it get kind of salt-and-peppery before I get into my forties, or will it just stay at a scattering for a while? (My mother's, I recall, did scattering in her thirties, and only really became salt-and-pepperish in her early fifties. My grandmother's ditto. And my hair is really from that side of the family. However, I do have a whole set of other genes, and they're harder to track--my father's hair is such a light brown that we've hardly been able to see the beginnings of his silvering sideburns, and my father's mother has been dying her hair since before I was born. Don't know a thing about the English side's graying tendencies. Genes are a mysterious thing.)

And there's also a sense of regret, maybe even a little bit of panic. My hair is already turning gray (OK, two hairs are), and I haven't even won a Pulitzer yet, or published a novel, or had a baby, or gotten good at a profession. HURRY UP! the hair seems to be notifying me. We're supposed to be in the prime of life here. MOVE! I've hit some kind of Solstice-y balance point--the beginning of wisdom, maybe, and the beginning of the end of hair pigmentation.

But it really looks way cool. I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. Must ask the hairdresser if she can spot any more in there.