Stick a Fork in Me, I'm Done

Yesterday I had a day that rocked me to the very core of my vain, still relatively young (IT NEEDS TO BE SAID), being.

Yesterday I found some gray hairs.

And by "gray" I mean straight-up-blinding-pure-as-the-driven-snow white.

And by "some" I mean a giant strip along the crown of my head, conveniently hidden all this time by my sneaky part. I'm talking Cruella DeVille-style stripes.

When I found them I gasped so audibly and dramatically that my daughter thought I had maybe cut myself or something. She ran into the bathroom to find me running my fingers through my hair in horror and disbelief, and then that's when I also found the rogue, solitary grays, splayed willy-nilly across my scalp. Because insult to injury and cruel jokes, apparently.

The bathroom light was hitting those suckers in all the right places, and they were shiny and there was no questioning what they were. They were there to taunt me and remind me of my mortality and that it's all downhill from here, baby.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I can totally embrace aging gracefully. But the aging part needs to happen slowly. I need to be eased into this.

I am 31. I can understand one, MAYBE TWO, grays. That's like dipping my pinky toe into the water of "Hey, you're no spring chicken anymore." I can tolerate that.

But like...a colony of grays? And an apparent mutinous colony at that?

At first I thought I could grapple with my grays because let's be honest, the Miranda Priestly character is pretty freaking fabulous in The Devil Wears Prada.

SLAAAAAAY.
source: Vanity Fair

But like, I'm still mostly brown. And old, grown-out-highlight blonde, because I haven't been to the salon in oh, about six months.

So no, Miranda Priestly I am not. Which is unfortunate.

After five long minutes pep talking myself into thinking this would all be okay, I flipped my part back over to camouflage my skunk stripe and went about my business.

And THEN. Oh, and then. This is the part where it all goes to crap.

Later that day, I was chit chatting with the intern at the office, who is a young, full-of-hope and not-full-of-existential-despair-and-dread 20 years old. I was talking to her about these grays I found, but mostly about how I've been having trouble sleeping.

She asked me, "How old are you again?"

I responded, "31."

She responds: "Oh, well you aren't THAT close to menopause, because my mom..."

And then I stopped listening and died because:

1.) She was suggesting that menopause could maybe, possibly, be the cause of my sleep-deprivation woes.

2.) I was just compared to a 20 year old's mom.

You guys, I am all about aging gracefully. But do you know what else I am all about?

AGING GRACEFULLY WHEN IT'S MY TIME, DAMMIT.