I decided to write about those awful Instagram ladies with silver hair, who expect a medal for going gray. They all have tons of followers who idolize them and eat up every positive, self-congratulating post about Loving Life, or practicing yoga. To me, these women seem interchangeable; they all have a silver mane that they constantly refer to, and they are all very thin if not emaciated.
So I googled “gray-haired women” to look for some images to copy. None of them excited me until I saw one who called herself a “Pro-aging Ambassador.” I never heard of this title and have no idea if there’s a million or if she’s the only one. And I don’t know what duties the ambassadorship entails. Does she travel the world giving speeches about the Wonders of Aging? Does she chair committees?
I would like to adopt my own title: Anti-aging Ambassador. I will go around complaining about getting old (which I already do constantly, in an unofficial capacity.) I will persuade those silver foxes to wipe the smiles off their wrinkly faces.
Instead of “embracing the gray”, I will extol the glory of dyed hair. I will heartily mock the actresses who have suddenly embraced their gray. Jane Fonda, Andi McDowell, even Jennifer Aniston, apparently. They all look better with their hair dyed. Maybe they’re just too lazy to keep up the color, but let’s not act as though they cured cancer. Plus, you need to spend plenty of time to keep that silver looking soft and shiny instead of dull and coarse.
My sister has a friend who went gray a million years ago, before she was forty, and we always wondered what her problem was. Why did she just let her turn grey and straggly? Was she making a Statement? Was she saying, “I’ll show you, society, I don’t have to adhere to your beauty standards”? Her hair is still gray and we’ve decided she’s being passive-aggressive.
Being old truly sucks. There is nothing good about it. Nothing. All those platitudes that begin with, “The good thing about getting old is” are lies. “…you stop caring about what people think of you!” “You are so much wiser!” “You know what really matters in life!”
Please. I am nearly seventy and still totally crushed if someone doesn’t like me. I don’t know anything about anything, and keep making the same mistakes. I’ve obviously learned that life is fraught with catastrophes, but I already assumed this as a teenager from reading Thomas Hardy novels. I have acquired no wisdom to pass on except “wear more shorts while you’re young!” I have opinions and policies but not wisdom. And I’m just as confused and mystified as I’ve always been. I have no idea what matters. I’d like to keep my eyesight and be able to wipe my own butt but otherwise I don’t know what ‘s important at this point when the key milestones of life have already passed.
Late adulthood is a time of deep reflection and introspection. If you are proud of the life that you have led, then you should feel a sense of peace. If, however, you are haunted by regrets and failures, you will likely experience despair and resentment.
According to Erikson, either ego-integrity or ego-despair characterizes the end of life for older adults. The virtue of this stage is wisdom.
Well, yes but no. Maybe it’s just my ego-despair talking, but the old people I know are all worried about diabetes and Alzheimer’s and health insurance. We can’t remember words and don’t like to crouch down to tie our shoes. Personally, I salt everything and eat lots of processed food but most of the old people I know are serious about their diet. We want either Botox or fillers and wish we could lose that roll of flab. When we watch TV and see someone for the first time in years, we scream “OH GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM/HER??” Maybe that last part is just me, but I doubt it.
For as long as you can ward off old age, you should enjoy the use of your body and brain before they become a burden to you or someone else. Prepare for loneliness and a lack of purpose. Make sure you have all the cable channels and a good TV.
And for fucksake, commit to the upkeep of your hair and don’t believe it when your partner or children say you look great with gray hair. They’re just threatened by your lingering attractiveness, such as it is. I may be senile but my hair is glorious! I pay a fortune to color and tame it but it’s worth every penny. To paraphrase Yeats,
only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.
You can let yourself go, I mean embrace your gray, if you must, but bury me blonde. Or cremate me blonde. Whatever.
What the hell are you complaining about??? You practically look like a teenager! Is there a filter on that photo? What the hell…you make me feel like such a hag…
But I couldn’t agree more about being totally back at square one in terms of overall wisdom and worldliness. I think what usually passes for that in oldsters is just fatigue. I am still a live nerve ganglia of insecurities and horrible instincts, and no amount of therapy seems to have cured me.
I actually have always thought that was your natural colour, maybe with highlights (only because you’ve talked about them). Beautiful!
OMG two posts in a row, I‘m blessed!
After some thunder and lightning the past years, I come along with my mother in law just fine. The last days we had plenty of laughter, eg. when I wanted to take a foto of hers, she told me „not to come so near, so nobody could see her wrinkels“
and when I was romanticizing geting old and wise in front of her „she promised me, there is absolutely nothing enriching in aging.“
Now after years of child caring I went out to a concert again. My motto is: get around as cheap as you can…so I did it as I always used to do it, took a beer out of the hand from a stranger, had a good drink and handed back the glass with my brilliant smile.
So normally: the guy smiled back, glad, giving a good looking girl a taste of his generosity. This time I had a moral beakdown – the guy looked angry, headed over to his friend and said „What a queen – fuck her!“
Idk I get confused. Thanks for the shorts-advice, could have used it earlier!
And be generous with my english, I‘m a gettin‘ old…
Alison -I love the way you describe yourself. ME TOO. My natural hair color is black. It took 5 years to get to blonde. and my “secret” to looking youthful is good lighting!!!
Mina – Your English is excellent! I know what you mean about the brilliant smile. It’s horrifying to realize that you can’t rely on your “charm” to get a positive reaction. In our next lives, we’ll wear shorts every day.
Hi Darls good to hear from you and glad you’re well (with that glorious hair and pretty face no need to despair!). Best of all you’re still funny as hell and so is Mina.
Sally – Thank you, you are too nice! Thanks for sticking with me xo
I’ve never been very mature. I worked it out once and figured out that as I aged I got less and less grown up, so that as a really old person by any standards, I’m about 37 years behind where I ought to be, maturity-wise. But, in this most recent decade life has kicked my ass hard enough around the block so that I’ve been forced to learn a few things that everybody else had down cold when they were 25. And I think this new, hard-won everyday knowledge passes itself off as some kind of oldtimer’s keen insight and enlightenment. Wisdom, my ass. I like what Alison said about it just being fatigue.
Your hair is magnificent, damn you. Your lingering attractiveness has several inches of good tread on it before it starts wearing down to the crone, if I may use a tire/hag metaphor. My hair was that rich honey color when I was young and stupid. Stupider.
It’s so good to read you again!
I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days now. Sister Wolf, you’re a fabulous writer. So witty and clever with many of your observations. This one however hit me wrong. I stopped coloring my very long, keratin smoothed hair at the start of the pandemic. I was 64 at the time and those first few months were rough. I was unsure of my decision but was supported by my husband and my hair stylist. Most of the critical comments came from older people who were resigned to dyeing their hair until death! After about 4 months of not coloring my hair I noticed that it wasn’t really about hair color after all. It was about self acceptance. I got so many compliments on the silver hair and after looking at old pictures of myself I realized that it wasn’t hair dye that made me look younger, it was my self confidence. It took nearly 3 years of monthly haircuts to cut off all the dyed hair although I started enjoying the process after the dyed hair reached about chin length. I have never posted gray hair pictures of myself but my hair is beautiful (although it’s getting thinner over the years, but that’s another topic) I wanted to write these thoughts to you because I think we need to support other women and not be so quick to put all the crazies into one pile. Some gray haired women are gorgeous (without filters) and some look better with dyed hair. Most importantly we as women of a certain age have earned the right to be free from criticism from our peers. That’s what high school was for. You look beautiful and my comment is not intended to be critical, but maybe to encourage someone who might be fearful to stop dyeing to start living with a beautiful natural older self image.
Bevitron – I’ve missed you! Maybe the wisdom to know how immature and fatigued we are is better than nothing. I wish I could see you with your stupid honey-colored hair!
A – Yep, you’re right. Well said. I guess what I’d like is for women to look however they want. If you look good with grey hair, or you don’t look good but don’t give a shit, it’s no one’s business but yours. But you don’t deserve praise for your choice, any more than a women who dyes her hair. We should all be free to look how we want without having to explain ourselves. My feelings about women who appear to make no effort at all are probably based on my insanely judgemental nature.
I just can’t stand the hypocrisy of these influencers who clearly aren’t average sized women acting like they’re “embracing” mother nature. They are flaunting looks that are unachievable for most women. So fuck them.
And I’m not sure about deserving to be above criticism on account of our age. How about women of every age being subject to the same level of acceptance or criticism? Can we work with that?
I’m so happy you feel free to disagree with me! I have blind spots and have been known on occasion to be a jerk and so much worse.
I can’t believe I had forgotten about this gem of a blog for so long. I literally could not recall the name but knew you had hilarious posts on ugly denim, so thanks to Mr Google I was able to find it again !
you look stunning and your hair is gorgeous, I will keep mine long just as you are, forever and ever into old age.
sarah -Thank you! For the compliment AND for keeping your hair long! Ugly denim still fascinates me. I’ll find you some, okay?
As someone else who went gray before 40 – before 30, sadly – when I was cranky and busy and poor, I stopped dyeing it, believing it only temporary before the next special occasion. And then I just never did. People call it brave like they call fat people who go out in public brave, but those of us who aren’t self-styled ambassadors are just existing. The passive aggressiveness comes from those weird compliments about how ugly we are, but wow, look at us daring to be ugly where other people can see! If only people were honest. If only we could be unmarked women.