Growing Old...Gracefully?

I hit my mid-30s last week.  I'm fine with it...really.  But at 35, should I really be worrying about zits, wrinkles, chin hairs and gray hair?  I've been having to pluck the same black chin hair since right after having my second baby.  Now all of the sudden I have like 3-4 of those bastards.  I've been spotting the occasional gray hair here and there for a few months, but this morning when I pulled my bangs back; there's a whole flipping stripe of them!!!  Here's my pursuit to growing old...gracefully or vainly.
 
I started coloring my hair in 7th or 8th grade.  I don't remember asking my mom's permission.  It was just something Blondie & I started doing as soon as we were old enough to walk to Drug Emporium and buy it ourselves.  We started out gradually.  We'd squirt lemon juice in our hair before we'd lay out in the back yard....then we graduated to spraying "Sun In" in our hair every day before we'd blow dry it.  Then for some reason; when we got ballsy enough to actually buy a box of hair color, we bought that "Loving Care" brand....that I'm pretty sure was for old ladies trying to cover up their gray.  Let me tell you how well that turned out.  A few days after going a little (or a lot) blonder, my family left for vacation.  Two days in the highly chlorinated pools...my hair was GREEN!!!  Like the color of algae!!  It was horrible.  I'm sure my parents were probably laughing on the inside when they suggested I call the 800 customer service # on the box.  I don't remember the customer service rep holding her laughter in on the inside.  I'm pretty sure she was SAYING all of the right things through her bouts of laughter.

The chemical reaction scared me enough to lay off the dye...until summer was over.  Then the algae had grown out and my courage had returned.  We settled on "Nice 'n Easy"...and it was perfect!!!  I was the exact shade of blonde I'd always dreamed of.  Both of my siblings were toe headed...and as the token brunette, I always felt left out.  I finally belonged in my family.  I know this sounds ridiculous....and I'm saying most of it in jest.

As I got older and wiser...at the ripe old age of 17, I decided I wanted a change.  I'd had enough blonde.  I wanted to be a redhead....more like the color of cabernet.  I HATED IT!!!  And it wasn't as simple as just re-dying it blonde.  Being the hair color specialists that I thought I was...and my sister and her friend too, we went to Sally Beauty Supply.  How hard could it possibly be to strip the color from my hair?  After 6 hours of applying the blue paste to my hair, letting it take, rinsing and reapplying...waiting and waiting, my hair was capable of spontaneous combustion and it was ORANGE!!!  

Thank GOD my mother took mercy on me...and paid the $$$ to have it professionally taken care of.  After that Graceful Disaster, I decided I'd be better off just sticking with the blonde locks that suit me so well.  Well, until Blondie actually went to cosmetology school and had a license to mix dye and bleach together....then I trusted her solely and completely and allowed her to use my hair as her canvas.  I quickly became a hair color junkie!!

After Blondie became a mom and cut back her days in the salon, I moved over to another of my best friends, Chuckles.  She's been doing my hair for 5+ years now.  And she's ALWAYS willing to change things up and play with my color.  I must say she was NOT the best thing for my addiction...but having close friends in the biz, I've never had to pay full price anyway.  But times have gotten lean and the first things to be trimmed from the budget are the extras.  A couple years ago I decided to go all natural.  I believe my words were "I'll just grow old gracefully...at least until I find my first gray hair."  Well, I've been in denial for a while about those mysterious "blonde" hairs.

I come from a long line of vain people.  At 15, my Gramma asked me where I got my blonde hair from....and I told her "The same place you got yours.  The bottle."  My mom still colors her hair.  Even my dad fought it for a while with his "Just For Men".  My dilemma now is, I'm so spoiled when it comes to hair color....I don't think I can go back to doing my own color.  So do I swallow it and just scrape up the money to have Chuckles do it or do I just sit back and let the gray take over?

And while we're on the subject of spending money on my beauty....I'm contemplating laser hair removal.  I can handle shaving my legs and arm pits....but I draw the line at shaving my face!!!  At what lengths have you gone to defy your age? I'd love to hear from all of  you!!
 
If you're new here, please follow me here on GFC, Facebook and Twitter.  I'm entertaining, I swear!!  Happy hump day y'all!!!