I started noticing it right after Aimee died. I was twenty-three. A couple gray hairs buried in the back of my head. Wiry anomalies in a bone-straight mane. Rice farmer hair, I called it. Not enough of them to come close to calling it salt and pepper.
Fast forward fifteen years. Tonight I leaned closer into the mirror when I was washing my face before bed. Upon close inspection, my skin looks like a cartographer's dream: crow's feet crevasses that flow into a grid of criss-crossed lines across my mug. Apparently, a lot of grinning... and, a lot of grimacing. And way more gray sprouting up around my hairline like suburban sprawl. It's not an anomaly anymore. It's soon to be salt and pepper. I've dated a couple women who dyed their hair (and probably still do but how would I know? I've never been a let's-be-friends-after-a-fall-out type). That's another post. Anyway, each of them said, "If I didn't dye my hair, I'd be completely salt and pepper." Like it's a bad thing. Is it? I'm aging. Am I accepting it too easily?
Budgie is six and has turned almost completely gray around her muzzle. She and I are similar in age if you think of her in dog years. We're both sitting around going gray. Yep. That's about it.
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