Graychalk.com | Misplaced Pieces
The Aging Milestone
Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 03:52 am
Earlier tonight, I was in the elevator with my sister when she quite suddenly gave a little squeal (perhaps in triumph?) and dove her fingers into my hair. It scared me a bit in that “do I have bird poop stuck in my hair” way, except she probably wouldn’t be wading and digging through the strands had that been the case. She was, in actuality, looking for that glimpse of white hair she thought she saw.
The verdict? She wasn’t hallucinating and I do indeed have my first strand of white hair. I know it really isn’t a big deal, and I’d probably forget all about it in a few hours… but I still stood in front of the mirror for 10 minutes, holding out that one single strand and gawking at the clearness of it anyway. Of course, my sister was standing behind me and cackling the entire time while I babbled something intelligent like, “Oh my God, I have a white hair!” She has every right to laugh, of course, since I have been seen and heard waving her “concerns” off in the past whenever she made comments about her white hair issues. She has about 7, a number I’m always poking fun at and insisting that they sprouted from the first white hair she pulled out… which brings me to this myth:
Don’t pull out your white hairs, because for every white hair you pull out, seven more will grow back in its place.
I don’t actually believe in that myth, and even if 7 more white hairs were to appear on my head, I’d be okay with it… so I do have to wonder why I freaked, overreacted, and slapped my sister’s hand away quite ferociously when she reached towards my single white hair with an offer to yank it out. I don’t know. Maybe it’s like baby milestones where you’d mark the first step, word, etc. and this is like a part of my aging milestone. My first white hair and all.
Having milestones for aging sounds a tad depressing, but in the recent years, I’ve really started to notice the signs. And I mean real signs and not the kind that’s being thrown around by a 23 year old wailing “oh noes, I’m getting oooold!” type of thing. Signs that (took me a while to realize) was due to me not being all that young anymore. Because unlike the young girls moaning about how they’re getting so old now, I’m the exact opposite in that I kept forgetting I’m no longer as young as I used to be. In fact, you’d probably often find me mulling over some “weird” issue or another only to have a friend roll her eyes at me when I bring it up, with a retort along the lines of, “It’s because we’re getting old, Téa.”
Still, I don’t really think being in my early 30s means I’m old... but lately, I do think it’s certainly the start of being old. I can almost hear Rebecca’s ominous voice going off in my head with, “And it only goes downhill from here…” It’s not the being old part that scares me, I don’t think. Rather, it’s how fast the whole process is suddenly starting to happen. Well, at least it’s sudden to me. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t tend to pay close attention to my appearance nor am I the type who uses a lot of beauty products. As a result, I’m the last person to spot that particular wrinkle under my eye or the scattering bits of sun spots I have on my left cheek (something that others have apparently already noticed before me).
My point, though, is that I feel like it’s coming all at once. I’m finding myself unexpectedly starting to feel like I better be taking care of my health and looks ASAP while I still have a fighting chance at slowing the process down a bit. Just 2 years ago, I had thought I looked much younger than my age (and have often been told so as well)... then all within the span of one year, strangers are suddenly able to correctly guess how old I am, and these “aging” milestones are not only popping up one after another- they’re becoming increasingly obvious to me as well. So while my white hair may simply just be a stray hair that had lost its pigment (and I realize plenty of young people have white hair for various reasons other than aging), I can’t help but recall Rebecca’s words. Is this yet another milestone I’m reaching in this supposedly downhill process of getting older?
RSS - SubscribeIn Related Categories:
- Expensive = Better
Thu, May 21, 2009 - Lost in Translation
Sun, May 03, 2009 - Paranoia in Epic Proportions
Sun, April 05, 2009