I started coloring my hair in the 70s when henna — real Egyptian henna — could be purchased everywhere.  I had grey already back then, a shimmer of it through my red-brown curls.  My hair reached down to there! and the grey might have been considered charming by anyone who was twice my age, but at 18, I wanted to look young. Grey hair just didn’t cut it.

When I graduated from college, I cut my hair short, painted blonde streaks in it, and moved to Boston.  For the next two or three years, I experimented with hair painting in all sorts of imaginative colors, none close to my natural hue.  The curls grew until they again graced the region of my waistline, and the grey kept coming.  No one could tell; I became deft at the application of tint standing at the kitchen sink, rinsed with the hose or the shower.  Forever young.

After my son’s birth, I contemplated “going grey”.  But one afternoon, as the sun glinted on my brow, my little boy chirped at me, “Mom, I hope you don’t look like a grandma until you are a grandma.”  Strike a blow for Clairol stock shares; I kept on buying the box and covering the roots which surged forth, half-inch by half-inch, if I did not scrupulously attend to the process.

I got some alarming color results:  Purple, fire-engine red, and once, the most ghastly orange.  A year ago, a disarming stylist asked if I was aiming “for the ombre approach”.  Ouch!  I could only laugh.

At the beginning of March of this year, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and let the grey hair come.  I visited the lovely facility at Paul Mitchell The School in Overland Park, had a spray of forgiving “ash” highlights spread throughout the top layer of my new hair cut, and sat back to let nature take control.

Now, with my 59th birthday just four months away, I think I finally look my actual age.  It’s had a disturbing effect on me:  I’m starting to consider becoming a grown-up.

Stay-tuned!  Pictures forthcoming. . . when I decide if I’m staying the course, or reverting to type, in the next week or two.  Time will tell.

Ain’t that the truth!