God help me. I have dyed my hair for the first time. I am a 55-year-old woman and I have never dyed my hair. Oh my God! I feel absolutely panicked and scared and discombobulated. Why!!??? Why do I have such anxiety about this? My cousin, Denise, gave me a bottle of dark brown hair dye a year ago and it’s been sitting in my bathroom drawer for months. Every time I lose an eye shadow, a blush brush, or I am frantically searching for that prayed for, “please, God let it be there,” pink razor to shave my legs, or other parts (OK, that’s a whole other story. We’ll talk about that later). I see this bottle of dark brown hair dye with a pair of surgical gloves in a Ziploc bag. Gee, whiz! I am…I am getting old now. No! No! Fight! Fight for the dying light! Not for the dyeing brown, the dying light! Have I come to this? I look in the mirror and I’m beginning to see old. What is that? I don’t feel old. I don’t think old. I don’t think I look old. Well, not too old. But, when I see this face, this face that I’m so acquainted with, rimmed with squiggly little gray hairs, I swear that I start… I think I’m starting to look old. I don’t consider myself an overly vain person. But, damn. This shit has got to go! I do not like these little gray hairs!
Ok, my phone just rang and it was the compound pharmacy from Beverly Hills. They need a new credit card to process my hormone cream. Oh, dear God! Somebody get me a fucking fan! Hormone cream! And then, can we talk about menopause? Well, we will indeed talk about menopause. My now 11-year-old daughter says, “My mom has ‘The Menopause.’” Like it’s the flu…and with enough fluids, rest and progesterone, I’ll feel right as rain in a week. Most days I’m really OK with the idea of aging gracefully. But, I swear…today…with this black goo dripping down my forehead, staining it permanently…as well as my good white towels…the very real fear that I’m almost out of hormone juice is probably kicking in. I think nothing about this moment feels lovely today. Nothing.
And yet, I look out my window and it’s one of those crystal clear, sparkling blue sky
and turquoise water days, and I think, even if I don’t feel lovely at this moment, gosh, there’s lovely all around me. Everywhere I look. And in this moment of dripping dye and drying nails and unshaven parts, a chuckle escapes my lips. And here is the arrival of lovely. And today, that’ll do.
