My aging reflection

an ode to greying hair (and other middle aged musings)

Goldie Hawn: Death Becomes Her

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I pry apart the sections of my hair in the bathroom mirror and I see a lot of grey coming in.

My hair is naturally a little curly, but it’s easy to tell that these greys are more wild and untamed than the rest. Some of them stick straight up, like they’re electrified. Some wriggle from beneath the thick layers of my crown to sprout like new seedlings in the spring. Make no mistake: they want to be seen. They refuse to be buried. They’re little brave soldiers waving from the future - one that is descending more rapidly than I ever thought possible.

These soldiers are far fewer in number than the rest of my darkly pigmented hair, but they’re far more defiant, positively screaming their arrival. Alfalfa sprouts of awkward, nascent cronehood. They’re a stark contrast to the rest of my raven locks. I tried covering them up with dye for a while but have since taken a ‘live and let live’ stance with them - similar, in a way, to how I stopped killing house spiders and centipedes years ago. There’s still an impulse to banish them (the creepy crawlies and the grey hairs) from my sight. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, one steeped in the horror of the unknown. What feelings do spiders and centipedes even have? What inner life? I ask myself.

I know now that centipedes can live up to seven years. That’s a long time to develop a personality and attachment to life. That fact stayed my smashing hand. And ever since I saw that meme that spiders think they’re our roommates I couldn’t shake the anthropomorphism of it. So yeah, I guess you can say I’m a bug pacifist now. I’m trying to locate the same compassion and evidence for these rogue hairs: what inner life do these spiny, coarse, wiry tendrils have? The greyness - in my artistic opinion - seems to suggest a withering…something devoid of inner life. A sort of hollowness. But then I decided to google what others had to say about this shade - and mostly the consensus was: wisdom, maturity, grace, modesty. You know what? That checks out. That actually seems like a fine inner life to have, I guess.

I try to remember what I felt about other women whose grey hairs began appearing in subtle streaks. I recall feeling intrigued, but also repelled by the sight. I hate to admit that, as it seems very anti-feminist. But it goes to show that the tireless work of the youth-obsessed patriarchy infiltrated my psyche too. I mean, of course it did. Part of the work of feminism is overcoming one’s own misogyny, ableism and ageism. Something that I will say becomes easier in middle age because you’re no longer hyper-focused on pleasing the male gaze.

The odd part was, I didn’t mind seeing an older woman who was fully grey but there was something about a few strands of colourless hair contrasted against an otherwise vivid, uniform mane that seemed, I don’t know - off to me. Almost like it didn’t belong. Cue “One of these things is not like the other…”

Meryl Streep, Death Becomes Her

I now understand that this reflects what I assumed about middle age - being that it was a rather void-like space, a bridge between two more solid points of contact with womanhood. The smattering of grey seemed to me like a conscious decision to let oneself go. To let go of youth - something we’re told we should be grasping onto at all costs.

Keep in mind this was my perspective when I was younger. I don’t say this to excuse it - more to illuminate how amazing it is that, without knowing it, I was grossed out by a visibly aging woman - something I would someday become. Perhaps I was feeling the ick because deep down I knew it would happen to me. These were feelings I’d someday have to reckon with but always seemed on some distant horizon. The gulf between 20 and 40 is short on one hand, but feels infinite on the other. The dawn of the middle age is often experienced suddenly and violently, like being woken from a dream where summer meadows are swaying in a gentle, balmy breeze. You all at once come to consciousness to find that you’re shivering and the leaves have all fallen from the trees. You’re deep in your own personal autumn.

I remember when my mom turned 40 she said, “Well, I’m 40. Time to start dyeing my hair and putting on makeup.” Coming from someone who’d never done either, I was vexed. I was in my early teens at the time and scoffing at her. “Mom, that’s ridiculous.” I said, fully believing it.

Why was there suddenly this rule?

On New Year’s Eve I was at a friend’s house with a bunch of girlfriends. None of them are perimenopausal (which is annoying - come on and join me in the trenches, already!) but we’re all the same age (40ish). During a conversation about aging, all of them admitted to getting Botox. Some said unabashedly that they’ll get all the procedures under the sun if they can afford it. I had to forcibly stop my jaw from hitting the floor, and brows hitting the ceiling. I know these interventions are quite commonplace nowadays, and I’m not shaming anyone for getting them - but I was shocked to realize that I am the only one amongst our group that’s aging without any injectable / surgical aid.

I heard this, and immediately began studying their faces more closely. I couldn’t help it - I was looking for signs of modifications. Truthfully I couldn’t see anything. It’s subtle enough - for now. The emphasis being on the ‘for now.’

Each morning I sit in front of a window in my office and do my makeup - always minimal because I hate how heavy makeup feels - just filling my sparse eyebrows (thanks, 90s Gwen Stefani) and covering up any redness. There’s a lot of this over the last two months. Red in some respects is the antithesis of grey - it’s raging, hot, blistering, raucous, palpably alive. The redness, too, wishes to be seen. But this I won’t tolerate, because it was my own error.

The one rabbit hole I went down upon turning 40 was skincare. Knowing I’d never do the aforementioned injections or surgery, I opted to go the topical route. I knew it wouldn’t keep me from aging but it would - hopefully - nourish and protect my aging skin. I bought all the products, and began doing all the things. I watched all the videos and made sure to do all the steps. All that occurred was irritation. My skin became a literal hotbed of protest. It said, “Let me be myself. Stop trying to slather me in serums that promise to stave away the inevitable.” (When pores speak, they sound very high-pitched and squeaky, so it’s hard to make out sometimes. But I’m pretty sure that summed it up. And I did, by the way, stop.)

Ode to middle aged skincare courtesy of The Matrix

When I gently lift my cheeks with my fingers I see what I looked like ten years ago. It’s bewildering, but also comforting, to see younger versions of myself in moment of defied gravity. Those selves are still there.

But that’s not who I’m really looking at.

I won’t say I’m necessarily proud of my overall decision to age naturally - I just feel lucky to have what seems to be a more harmonious relationship with it than some of my peers. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because they’re not yet in perimenopause. There’s such a marked shift of internal weather that occurs during this transition and it truly does strip away a lot of impetus to strive for something that’s ultimately unattainable: turning back time. Whatever the fuck these celebrities are doing to themselves now, read: Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan - the general consensus seems to be that they look identical to how they did when they were 20.

The consensus seems to also be (from reading comments sections) that due to this illusory time-jump, they should be massively congratulated for achieving the impossible. I’ve never been one to critique a woman’s desire to conform to beauty standards that are becoming more and more ludicrous and plastic by the year - it’s the fault of the intersection between capitalism, the patriarchy, cosmetics companies and the media that is to blame. But I don’t think we should be congratulating this.

The mere fact that we do congratulate this emphasizes how, on the other end of the spectrum, we need to champion naturally aging women by calling them ‘brave.’ This bravery would not exist without the other succumbing.

More Meryl, Death Becomes Her

To me, all of this effort feels deeply antithetical to what’s ultimately a time of stripping away the unnecessary. Perimenopause, your 40s - it is an era of shedding. I no longer wear a bra. I no longer dye my hair. I no longer shave my legs every day. I no longer wear tight clothing. My fiancee recently remarked that I dress very ‘gender neutral’ now. He’s right - because I’m dressing for comfort, for room to breathe, and not for the male gaze. I care less what others think. I have stepped away from the social media spotlight. The keenness is for less, not more. What’s fundamental and crucial, not extra. An inner autumn and winter is about introspection, which requires casting off layers of excess, of vanity. Everything else feels like clinging.

I am somewhere between two worlds, and the liminal space I occupy is full of my old self and my new self. They are deep in dialogue. I sit back and listen.

Until next time,

Love and wolves.

D xx

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