Splitting Hairs

Once in a great while I realize that I have ceased to be twenty years old.  It is on those days, like today, for instance, I dye my hair.

It doesn't take away the lines in my once-smooth face or firm up the skin that hangs like bat wings from the underside of my arms.  However, it does help me to better pretend that age is just a number.  It's hard to pretend when your roots are white as the driven snow...or gray as dirty slush.

Many a few times in the past I have grown out the real color just to see what it truly is.  I struggled to keep it natural, keep it real.  And every time I struggled, I lost.  The dye came out again.

This season we have a lovely reddish-brown, which compliments my paper-white skin.  I look like a vampire without the teeth.  Thankfully, it fades with time to my almost natural color of mousy brown.

When I can see (from the roots) that the whole shebang has indeed turned totally gray, I will give up and let my true colors show.  Until then, humor me.  Let me go on in my delusion of youth.  Let me be the only twenty-year-old grandmother you know.

OK, twenty-FIVE-year old grandmother.

I'm not one to split hairs.  :)