Here's the plot so far. I started graying--and dyeing my hair--in my late 20s. For years I tried to get up the courage to stop. Finally, last year I had my hair cut really short, kind of punk, but it still took months and months for it to grow out its natural color--white, as it turned out! It was a relief to be done with all the mess and pretense. Then my brother saw it. Not unkindly, he observed, "You look like [Grandma]." Someone inside immediately decided, "Jerry deserves better than a wife that looks old enough to be his mother!" I don't remember doing it but one of us went right out, bought the dye and colored it again! When I "came to my senses," I thought, Oh no, I'm back where I started. I'll have to summon my courage all over again and then go through another year of slow torture!
This is from my new "group" journal:
OK, it's time for a hair discussion and (Jerry says) a vote. In two hours we're supposed to get our hair cut real short so it can grow out its natural color again. It is already to that humiliating place where it's dark brown to within a couple of inches of my head, and the roots are so pale they make me look bald. This is the stage at which I always give in and color it again. I really don't want to look like this [on Saturday], when we'll be seeing "important" friends in the media who respect me. Or did.
Well, I guess I (the moderator) have had my turn. . . If we took a vote I think we'd all agree we don't want it white AND we don't want to color it. We want it to be naturally brown. We've always agreed on that.
By the way, Jerry already voted for white.
I'm trying to really listen for the ones inside. I told them to take turns and they'd each be heard but I'm nervous and don't know if I'm really hearing them. I took a preliminary vote and sensed that all but two were willing to live with it white. Of those two, one was vehemently opposed--the one (Jessica?) who says, "I don't want to look old! I'm only seven!" and another who's not sure what she wants; she keeps holding her hand up tentatively and then putting it down.
I suppose the vehement one wants to go first:
It isn't fair! I didn't get a childhood and now I have to look old. It's not like in Japan where they--revere?--respect people more as they grow old. Over here there's no respect for age and you just get ignored or scoffed. I've already been ignored all my life. I want to live a normal life now. Besides when I look old I feel old. I feel embarrassed and apologetic and unimportant. I can't stop thinking, "I'm [age]! YUK!"
But that woman at that political party we went to had white hair and that same cut we're getting that we had before and she didn't look old. She looked striking! I thought, That's what we look like! I don't mind that! No wonder people said we looked elegant and regal and beautiful when our hair was white. I wanted to tell that woman that's how she looked but we only saw her from a distance walking through the big room.
I guess I don't mind being a grandma because it's okay to play with children and do kid things if they don't know you're a kid, too. My mother and grandmother had beautiful white hair and they had childlike, tender hearts and were loving and gentle. So that would be all right. Someone is helping me write this. They are putting my thoughts in big words.
The other one that he called tentative is holding her arm in her lap now and not putting it up anymore, like she seems to think if I'm all right about it she is too.
BUT I DONT WANT TO DECIDE WHAT WERE GONG TO TELL HER TO DO, LIKE "TRIM" AND THEN WHEN WE GET TEHERE TELL HER "REAL SHORT." WE ALWAYS DO THAT. WHE CHANGE IN TE MIDDLE ABOUT what we're going to get and afterwards someone is always disappointed and someone (else) is always REALLY MAD (maybe me). And she always does the bangs wrong, no matter what we tell her!
We took another vote--everyone is sitting cross-legged and although I'm not sure I saw any hands raised I still sense unhappiness where Vehement and Tentative are sitting. Like V. is resigned, not sold, and the littler one doesn't like it but doesn't know how to put it into words. Let's see if we can move the microphone closer and pick up her thoughts.
I'm just little and I want everyone happy. I don't like argue and afraid wont be happy afterwards no matter what tell her she do it too short then some angry or cry and wish didn't go. wish hair didn't grow after find good style. Real short wacs cute. white didn't matter. I don't feel old. Many colors people change all time I don't care just don't fight.
Something like that.
Jess: I don't care one way or the other. Just make a decision and stop stressing about it. Who cares what your hair looks like. Big deal.
I think Jenny's been pro-white all along. It's her color--but also she's kind of a martyr, like: I need to look my age even if it means being dismissed as irrelevant, even if people kick me to the curb. That's all I'm worth.
So there's her quiet sadness (moping?) and Jessica's "I don't like it but I can make the best of it" and April's "Let's not think about it. Let's just all be friends." If anyone else has objections they're not voicing them. Maybe they're all silent because I, Moderator, am not just taking an objective vote but somehow bullying them into conforming to my desire for unanimity. Will they all grieve, pout, throw things, and then turn their back on me if we go through with this?
Would it be better to cancel the appointment, drive directly to the store and "compromise" by buying a lighter shade of brown--but that's what we tried to do last time and it turned out darker and we said, "NO MORE!"
After achieving consensus, however reluctant on the part of two or three, what's to prevent one of us from going to the store after everything's over and the last of the dye has grown out or faded, buying more and coloring our hair without our knowing it? starting the conflict all over again. And the humiliation. The first time took us decades to get up the courage to resolve to do it and a year to carry it out. Unless we're all on the same side we'll continue to seesaw back and forth, yes and no, brown, white, natural, artificial, young, old, pleasing one but displeasing another.
Can't we agree on something and stick to it?
That was four days ago. Since we got it cut punk again not a day has gone by but I've gotten 2-3 compliments on the style! No one who sees us seems to mind that there are patches of white here and there.
Note to self: This works. Don't go back. We're all on the same page now, don't sabotage this!
Please?
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