52 Weeks: Week 51

Looks like someone is long overdue for some haircolor! Man, it is hard to keep up with it these days! I try to color every month or so, but get behind a week or two and look what happens! As I approach my 41st birthday, I am wondering if I will be completely gray/white by the time I am 45 like my mother was (and all of my other female relatives as well). I may even beat them out by a few years! Still, I do NOT like it and I plan to keep coloring--guess I have to do it even MORE often as I age! Maybe the fact that I now have two teenagers is turning my hair gray even faster than before! :) All I know is this: I still FEEL young, so I want to LOOK as young as I feel! I just cannot accept being totally white-headed in my 40s!! Heck, I don't know if I will accept it in my 60s!! But in my early 40s--it just seems ridiculous!! I know, nature is doing what it is doing and I am trying to fight nature--thank goodness for haircolor or I would feel "old before my time." This aging thing is tough! If it is this hard at 40, how hard will it be at 60? Am I fighting a losing battle? I know I WILL age, but can't I do it at a slower pace? Maybe I am making too big a deal about hair color. Even if I did let it get completely white, I still would feel the same inside. I would still approach life with gusto and enjoy my "second adulthood" with vim and vigor. Why am I placing so much emphasis on my hair color? I don't know--I think white hair represents a life stage to me. My grandmothers and other female relatives began "acting old" in their 40s--and they wore their white hair proudly as a sign of their aging. They wore their snow white hair in "old lady" styles, they wore "old lady" clothes and shoes, and they pretty much sat in their rockers and waited for their lives to end. To them, they WERE old and life was nearly over! They had married, raised families, taken care of their homes--they felt that they had accomplished everything in life by the time they were my age. The rest of their lives were spent thinking they were too old to do anything else. NOT ME!! I am thinking: yes, I accomplished all of my former goals, but now I have LOTS of new goals. I am ready to set out and conquer the world! I plan on doing as much or more in my NEXT 40 years as I did in my first 40! I am a "very young middle aged woman" in my mind. I have so much more to accomplish! So I am NOT ready to look like an old lady, dress like an old lady, or act like an old lady!! Coloring my hair is just one aspect, but it is a very sensitive issue with me. To me, if I let my hair go white, I will look like an old lady like my grandmothers were. I guess I am rebelling from that whole image, and I want to do the exact opposite of what they did. No white hair, no granny clothes, no rocking chairs! Bring on the hair color, the stylish wardrobe, and the red convertible! I will definitely be coloring my hair this weekend! :)