My Gray Hair Moment

It's here. It's really here. I have found my first gray hair. Actually, I didn't find it. One of my wonderful and amazing girlfriends actually found it. Three of us were sitting around, reveling in the post-vegetarian-taco-meal coma, when I decide to ask my friend, our group's resident hair- and skin-care professional, to give my 'do a little snip. The ends were looking rather shabby, you see.

Said friend stands behind me, hair-care implements poised expertly in mid-air, and looks down onto the top of my head. She parts my hair, looks at me in the ginormous mirror and says, "Do ya see it?" I say, "What?" She says, "Oh, a gray hair." (She may have actually said WHITE.) I exclaim, "WHAT??" My friend, who is in a "feeling" profession, is able to pick up on my (not so) subtle non-verbal and verbal cues indicating I am horrified. She quickly asks, "Is this your first?" in a very calm, soothe-the-savage-beast, tone. Nearly speechless, a first for me, I choke out that it is, in fact, my first. I then find my voice and begin to rant and rave and sulk and pout.

Our other best gal is sitting calmly at the table cross-stitching. (I did say cross-stitching....) She looks up and laughs. A sweet, "there, there, honey" laugh. Or a laugh like you might laugh at someone who has finally realized they have their shirt on inside out. Panic-stricken, I ask (bark at) my hair-care friend to please pluck the offensive object from my head. (M -- I wrote "pluck" and not "tweeze" on purpose.) Having had extensive training in crisis intervention, both gals go into action, soothing and normalizing and joking and extracting (<--- the important part). The mission is a success. The hair is pulled. No one got hurt.

So the hair is gone. But so are the illusions that I am still __ years old. It's really not a big deal. But it is, at least for me, one of those moments when I think I should sit back and analyze this milestone and reflect upon my state in life. Take an inventory, so to speak. But I don't want to do that today. So, I try not to think about it. I know it happened. I know it's happening. But I don't really feel like focusing on that part. I feel more like focusing on the other stuff. For instance, when it happened and with whom. I was spending quality "family-fun" time with my amazing friends. We'd had a good meal, great conversation, cold beer and a ton of laughs. I had come home from a day of fulfilling and meaningful work. We had been out shopping for a present for one of our other girlfriends. We were sitting around, being ourselves, chatting away, as usual. I was with people who love me. Who don't care if I have elevendy-billion gray hairs or no hair at all. People who are honest and loving and accepting. Friends who will remove the offensive object, calm me down, and make me laugh. What else is there?

The bottom line is, I know I will have more "gray hair moments". I also know that I will continue to have my friends around me to share those moments with. That's really the important part.