Gray hair 1.0: The first steps.

It’s a start: My new hair, 2024.

So, I did it: At my last visit to the salon a few days ago, I decided to stop coloring my hair to match the deep auburn color it’s been most of my life.

Whew. It was a whole thing, and way more emotional than I’d imagined.

I guess that’s what happens when you change a habit that’s almost 30 years old. Especially when it’s something that’s been foundational to the identity I have long chosen for myself. If I’m not a redhead, who am I?

As you might remember, I have been thinking about going gray and wondering how it would turn out for a while now. As I get older and more secure about my place in the world, I’m no longer fearful of what might happen if my hair isn’t the color it’s always been. I found that I’m craving a change. And I no longer think people might not notice me — or worse, ignore me — if my hair is gray.

As one of my friends said, in the best compliment I’ve had in a while, “Like you really think people aren’t going to notice you?”

Celebrities, not to mention many of my friends, have stopped coloring their hair, and, judging by the passion in the dozens of comments I got about going gray, both on this Substack and on social media, I wouldn’t regret it.

Yet when the moment arrived, I wasn’t so sure, to tell you the truth.

When I told Cyndi, my stylist, what I wanted to do, she was a little surprised — she’d been in the conversation I told you about where we all agreed that going gray made women look older. But she rallied and as we began to discuss a plan, she got more and more excited.

So did I.  

My first surprise: Turns out my hair is only gray — actually, closer to white — around my face. The back of my hair, at least from what we can see now, is closer to red than gray, even without color.

“What was your mother’s hair like late in her life?” Cyndi asked me.

The question hit me hard, because I don’t know. I realized that my mom, who died when she was 57 (I was 28), was only starting to go gray.

It’s not the first time I’ve felt like I was sailing into the next phase of my life alone, without the support and guidance of the one person who I could always count on for unconditional love and gentle but honest counsel. I’ve been wondering a lot lately what she’d think of the life I have built, about my communications company, about my amazing son, grown up now. She never knew him.  

Those milestones of loneliness don’t hit me as often as they used to, but this one really did.

The next surprise: We weren’t going to just stop coloring my hair and hope for the best. Cyndi had a plan, which involved layering in highlights among the gray hair around my face and giving me a new, short, fun haircut.

I’m really happy about how it turned out. I’ve never been anything close to blonde before.   

It’ll take at least a year for my colored hair to be completely grown out, a year until I know for sure what “natural” really looks like for me.

I promise you won’t get a report from every single salon visit. But finding joy in living into my real self — at least my real hair color — after all of these years seems like something to celebrate along with other women who might be one the same path.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.