I Found My First Gray Hair

I don’t even know how to spell the word gray, that’s how unfamiliar I am with this color. And now it’s on my head.

I turned 40 in June. I thought I was in love. I thought my life was headed in the direction of some security, even if it were only with a person.

Now that person is gone and I am alone, discovering a gray hair on my head.

If I am honest, I was alone anyway because I was burying things I didn’t actually enjoy about said person, which is a habit of mine because I want a partner. This is not the way, babe. Stop trying to make it be the way.

I haven’t gotten my color done in a minute, and there it was. A hair so light, it looked blonde. I ran to my friends in the other room, screaming.

“Is this gray! Is this gray!” No need for a question mark. I knew.

“Yeah,” they agreed, flatly, as though it weren’t an implosion of everything I believe about myself.

I am still young. There is still hope. Love will find me. My career is at a stalemate, but so are most people’s who work in the industry. I will be a working writer again. There is time. I have time. We have time. There is so much time.

This gray hair stared back at me, challenging my existence. Her name is Gretchen, I have decided. She is old and she is real. She knows time is an illusion, just like money. She knows that’s why we have to soak up every minute of every day, even when it’s shitty, even when we have to hear about the orange monster every five seconds. November 5th cannot come fast enough.

I have a gray hair. Hairs, let’s be honest. I don’t know how anything will work out, but it will. And if it doesn’t, at least I have an appointment with my colorist on the 17th. Sorry, Gretchen.