It seems like everyday I’m finding another grey hair on my face. Which I suppose I am ok with since I am deciding to grow more facial hair. If I get tired of it, I can just shave. Yet, I look at it as proof that I continue to survive from year to year.
I often joke that each grey hair on my head is assigned to various people in my life both past a present that have left their stressful mark on me. However, the obvious reality is that I am getting older. I would like to think that my graying hair means that I am growing in wisdom, but I am not sure how true that is. I feel that I make enough mistakes to keep me young. Of course making mistakes is what being human is all about but, making mistakes usually means that one is out there doing new things.
For some reason when I think about the eventual salt and pepper look I will get (which will be a LONG time from now), I think about my maternal grandfather. I kind of knew, by my hair type, that I would be dealing with a greyish look. My dad has a different hair structure (I still compare him to Danny Trejo) that is very flowing and South American. Mi abuelito had hair that was more traditional with afro Latino…
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I want to take a pause here because I am trying to not laugh…really. I mean, look at me trying to be all politically correct when it comes to the quality of the hair certain family members have. I could be really honest and just categorize it the way most people do. My father has good Latino hair that flows like Jesus and mi abueltio has pelo malo (bad hair) that flows like brillo.
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I think that I will eventually go back to the clean shaven look since there seems to less grey on my head than on my face. I’m really not that old. I’m staring at 39 in about six months and I feel like I am about 25. Truth of the matter is that being grey is not so bad. I feel like most of my life has been different shades of grey (which by the way…I hate that the book has coined this phrase).
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Now that I think about, those are not grey hairs. They are white. Maybe, they seem grey when compared to the black hair. I find that interesting. I mean, I have been called racist by white people so I wonder if there is this psychological thing that does allow me to call a white hair white. Maybe, I am color blind in the sense and don’t want to recognize the importance of a certain color so I just call it grey. Interesting thought.
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It’s all good. I think have the wisdom to get through such trivial things like grey hairs. I am just glad that I still have my health. I just hope that I never get to a point where I consider using products to color my hair back to black. Do not get me wrong, both Clyde Frasier and Keith Hernandez are both legends but I’m not doing that little “touch of grey” thing that they have been promoting for years.
I think that when people get older they need to own up to their age and just face facts. Getting crap like botox or any anti-aging things will only end up making you look plastic. I mean, just imagine how they will look during the zombie apocalypse. No one wont be able to tell if they are alive or dead AND that is a damn shame.
I am owning up to my impending age. I think I look good. I can’t help but laugh at the fact that when I was younger two things occurred. The first was that I always cried about being the shortest and the youngest. I would always look too young or small for anything and I hated it so much, I could not wait be old (when you’re a kid being old is 19). The second was the fact that I looks so damn young and nerdy, women never looked at me.
Well, I think now I have the last laugh on both cases. 🙂
Anthony Otero 