Fighting the silver beast.

My mom was older when she had kids, she was 37 when she had my brother and I, so that being said, she was one of the older parents among our group of friends. I remember being about 8 and asking my mom if her hair was gray because she was older. She smiled and told me that it was us kids that caused it, that we stressed her out and made her hair gray.

Obviously I know that gray hair is not caused by stress, it's genetic and it can happen at any age, but I didn't know that until I was in my late teens and I asked a hairdresser about gray hair. I also learned that it's completely false when people say that two gray hairs will grow in the place of a plucked one.

I noticed my first gray hair when I was 25. I remember being in the bathroom at a bar, washing my hands. I looked up in the mirror and saw a fleck of silver near the front of my hairline. After I dried my hands, I pushed away my other hairs and carefully plucked out the grayish white one. I was horrified and shocked that I had a gray hair. Over the past 5 years I've occassionally found a stray gray hair here and there (and I'll admit, I like to pluck or tweeze them out). This afternoon I saw one while washing my hands in the bathroom at work. I pulled it out, but then found there were several others hiding in my scalp near the front. Yikes! It's going to take some work to pluck them all out. I had my hair dyed about a month and a half ago hoping the dye job would hold me until the summer...but I may need to go sooner to cover up the gray!!!