Two Decades of Grey: CVS

I still remember the first time I dyed my hair. I had gotten a temporary one to start because the chemicals are less strong and I wanted to get my feet wet in the art of hair color. I remember getting out of the shower and wringing my hair out in my towel. Bits of color came off onto the towel as I dried my hair, but that was to be expected as it was temporary color. Also, who knows how well I actually rinsed off my hair. I tried. Later, I learned this happens after any kind of coloring. I learned to have designated black t-shirts to dry my hair that first wash. 

When I looked in the mirror, I saw a sea of black hair again, a uniform color with no imperfections. It felt normal. It looked normal. It looked good. And I knew from that moment, I wanted to see my hair colored for as long as I could help it. 

**

I need to insert a caveat here. Had I been 18 years old with the amount of grey hair I had, my opinions may have been different. Had I been 21 years old with the amount of grey hair I had, I may have felt differently. Had I been 25+ years old with the amount of grey hair I had, perhaps I would have done things differently. But I wasn't 25, 21, or even 18. I was 15, in the heart of high school, surrounded by a false impression of the way things "should" have been. And I had already endured at least two years of knowing the extent of what I had and how "abrnomal" it felt. After all, someone actually thought it was more likely for me to have bow hair in my hair at a grocery store...

**

So when I saw my hair colored dark and black, I felt like the teenager I wished I could be. I felt like a person I wanted to be but could not by nature. So I kept it up for the next 16 years. For the first 10 or so, I was dyeing my hair every five weeks to cover the roots, and I always did it myself. I can count the number of times I paid for hair color at the salon on one hand. 

In college, my roommates never knew I dyed my hair for the first two years. My freshman roommate was hardly ever in our room. She'd come back late after I had already fallen asleep most nights and left in the mornings before I awoke. It was easy to color my hair without her knowing and I never had a reason to tell her. During my sophomore year, I'd wake up early on Saturday mornings to dye my hair. My roommate would be asleep, and not many people were awake so I'd have the community bathroom to myself for the most part. It wasn't until my third and final year of college when I moved into an apartment and shared a bathroom with my roommate when I finally shared about my hair dye.  

During those college years, CVS was the place I bought my hair color. I was just using cheap drugstore ammonia-free hair color. Probably not the best thing in the world for my hair, but it was easily accessible and matched my frugal student budget. I could walk across campus, cross the street, and get to CVS. I even looked up the weekly sales online so I knew when the hair color was on sale. 2 boxes for $5. The same hair color is now $3.97 online and the days of 2 for $5 are long gone.

Good ol' CVS.

I have a memory at CVS during one of these shopping trips which I'll never forget. I ran into a boy I'd met through a friend from back home. We hadn't spoken to each other in at least a year. He was just an acquaintance, but he recognized me in the checkout line. As my items were being rang up, he asked me, "Wow, you dye your hair?" I was horrified. Not only had I run into someone I knew, but it was in one of my more vulnerable moments with a secret I had only verbalized to a select few people. 

It was in that moment when the cashier saved me. I was too stunned to speak and my face probably showed everything racing through my mind. But I'll never forget her response. 

You should never ask a girl if she dyes her hair.

At the time, I quickly paid for my things and left the CVS. I don't remember saying anything after hearing that boy ask me such a penetrating question. I don't remember what the cashier at CVS looks like. I only remember feeling like I had to get out of there as fast as I possibly could. 

The older I got, the more I realized how protective her statement was. I so wish I could have remembered the name on her tag or her face, or even the color of her hair. But I don't. I only remember her words, and they will stay with me forever.

This was the first of a few select moments in which I felt supported, protected, and affirmed. As unfortunate as the start of this was from my dad's response that very first conversation we had, there've been many moments which have helped to bring me to the place I am today. Perhaps this was all orchestrated from the beginning to play out in this very way. 

I just never knew it until I lived through it. 

Another Cabinet

We started the year with a project again. It's no surprise, we did the same thing last year. Although this year's project didn't involve any cleaning out, it was motivated by organization and storage.

Since we remodeled our bathroom in 2017, we've had a little niche in the bathroom. Originally, we had a massive storage cabinet and a tiny shower. When we remodeled, we enlarged the shower and stole some space from the original cabinet. We did not put a cabinet back, and instead, were left with this niche. 

It had strange dimensions. 96 inches tall. 24 inches deep. 20 inches wide. For the last six and a half years, we put a shelf in the space, but it didn't fit well, left a lot of unused space on top, and a lot of unused space on the sides. I would always go on random rabbit trails online looking for shelves or cabinets we could use to fill the space. Last winter, we finally committed.

We found a tall, narrow pantry cabinet which had the closest dimensions to our space: 96 x 24 x 18.

Moving this box into our bathroom took some skill.

The actual installation of the cabinet itself was rather quick. The problem was the details. We had a six inch gap at the top and a two inch gap on the sides. The goal was to make this cabinet look built-in, like it belonged perfectly in the space. 

Test-fitting the cabinet. 

As a result, we needed to fill the side, cover it in trim, and somehow figure out a way to fill the gap at the top of the cabinet. We brainstormed ideas to "crown" the top in trim, build an insert to fill the space, or somehow extending the top of the cabinet. In the end, we ended up using a genius trick to fill the space: raise the cabinet up from the bottom. 

We had some existing wood in our garage which hadn't been thrown out during last year's purge for the lift. My husband built a box for the cabinet to sit on and secured the entire cabinet on top of the box.

Much smaller gap, and I painted. We added three extra shelves because the unit
originally came with two. We can now maximize that space in storage.

My husband really detests painting. I've done all our DIY painting projects we've ever done. The only thing he painted was our master bathroom vanity cabinets. I was pregnant at the time so he primed and painted those. The rest? All me, now including this cabinet and three additional shelves we added. 

We added some hardware, reattached the doors, and voila! A built-in cabinet in an awkward space. You'd never know it wasn't planned to be there in the first place. The best (and most ironic) part was about a day after this cabinet was installed, I'd already "forgotten" about it. It blends in seamlessly into the rest of our bathroom and stores a ton of our extra towels and toiletries.

Two Decades of Grey - Middle School Part 2

When I was in 8th grade, I had a few friends already at the high school. One of them was part of the orchestra committee. The group was getting together to plan something, something which involved a trip to the grocery store. 

I don't remember how it was proposed to me to go meet a friend and hang out with them during their orchestra committee "planning meeting." I don't remember how I even got there or who drove. All I knew is I ended up at the local Kroger with a bunch of freshman and sophomore orchestra students.

I remember standing in an aisle, the group of us kind of in a circle formation, chatting. This one girl was looking my direction. Suddenly, she started approaching my right shoulder. My gaze instinctively followed her. She lifted up her arm and slowly reached for something. Then, she jolted her arm back and stepped backward, further away from me than she had been standing before. 

We looked at her, waiting for her explanation for the strange motions which had just occurred.

"I thought it was a bow hair."

I've never forgotten this line. How silly, right? None of us had an instrument with us. Why would there be a bow hair near my shoulder as I stood in the middle of a Kroger aisle with one friend and the rest mere acquaintances if not strangers. Of course, it wasn't a bow hair. She did not say what was implied when she realized what she had actually seen.

Bow hair or grey hair? I'll let you decide.

I wasn't dyeing my hair yet, but by 8th grade, I had learned which styles I could safely wear to school to hide all of the greys. It was limiting, but I was okay with it because it meant I could mind my business in peace and not have to field strange questions. Most of the time, I could almost forget they existed because nobody brought it up. The friends who knew didn't comment, and the rest of them didn't know. 

What I could not control were the moments when a strand would peek out unintentionally through the dark curtain of black and become visible. This is exactly what she saw that day in the aisle at Kroger. I remember feeling more alien and abnormal after this happened. A part of my memory remembers her shuddering as well as jolting back and stepping away. This may or may not be my mind making it up. But I didn't make up her words.

****

It's almost comical how illogical it was for her mind to have first thought I had a bow hair near me in the aisle of Kroger. But that only showed me how inconceivable it was for a 14-year-old girl to have grey hair in the minds of certain peers. And it made the truth sting that much more.

Two Decades of Grey: Middle School - Part 1

I was in middle school when I noticed my own grey hair and began to dislike it. Up until this age, I knew they existed, but they were few enough to lay low and not interfere. By 7th grade, I had to consciously do my hair for school in a way which concealed them. Certain hair styles for me were off the table. Anything with a half updo, I could not wear. 

One evening, I remember sitting at my desk in my room with the lamp on. It was supposed to be the desk used for homework. Very rarely did I ever complete my homework at my desk. I wrote my diary every evening at my desk. I crafted at my desk. I made a DIY sun catcher and used a blade to cut out shapes. For a while I practiced writing with my left hand at my desk. My ambidextrous talent never took off, but I'm decent on a dry erase board.

The DIY sun catcher I made in middle school. Two pieces of
cardboard sandwiching a sheet of iridescent film covered with decorative contact paper.
My first time using a blade to cut. This piece of art has survived decades.

I cut my hair at that desk. Once.

It wasn't your normal hair cut. I had somehow gotten the idea in my head that if I cut all of my grey hairs out, you wouldn't be able to find any and my hair would be restored to a uniform single color again. After all, they always tell you not to pull out grey hairs or else two would grow back, right? What a silly lie. So that's what I did one evening. I sat at my desk with my lamp turned on, grabbed a grey hair one by one, and snipped high up on my head.

After doing this, something inside of me felt more safe, comfortable. I was going to wear a half updo to school now that I'd found a "solution."

What my young teenage brain failed to process was that unless the scissors were placed adjacent to my scalp, (which I didn't do because I would risk cutting other hairs or my scalp itself - this I was able to process logically and correctly,) my greys weren't actually "gone." In fact, they were now even more obvious than if all the hairs on my head were a consistent length. 

I learned this the hard way when a friend saw and commented on my grey hairs being an uneven length compared to everything else. That's when something in my brain clicked and I came to the conclusion stated above. My "solution" wasn't actually a solution at all, and I became even more self-conscious.

***

In 8th grade, I remember being in the library with a few other girls. Our schedules were different so due to what they were doing at the middle school, we were hanging out in the library for an extended time that week. It was a book fair week. I remember us sitting between shelves of books for sale at the book fair. We were sprawled out on the floor just chatting and relaxing as teenagers do. 

Somehow the conversation went to talking about a movie. One of the girls remarked, "It would be really cool to have silver hair like the character." 

I replied, "Oh, I've got some. I'm almost there." 

I will never forget her response. "No, Cathy, yours are grey."

Shut down in five words I'll never be able to erase. She could have said a multitude of other things which wouldn't have had the same sting: 

You don't have enough yet. 

Maybe in 20 years. 

Haha, that's funny.

But instead, she said the worst thing you could have said to me as a response. And sadly, I'll never forget it.

On Death and Heaven

My daughter is very curious. She's been asking me questions since she could talk, but lately, these questions have gotten more real and the topics have become more serious. One morning on the way to school, she blindsided me with a very loaded question.

When I die, will I go to heaven and see Jesus? I told her yes. We've had the conversation before on why heaven is special and what it takes to go to heaven. She continued:

Will you die before me? Yes, I will. I hope so. 

Will I die before you? No, you won't. 

After you die, and then Tristan and I die, we will go find you in heaven. She made it sound like such a matter-of-fact order of events that would happen. She also made it sound like it would happen instantly, like we would all die together and find each other in heaven. 

The bond these two share is quite something. 

I kept my answers short. There wasn't any way I could elaborate more and enunciate my answers aloud while driving my children to school. There were silent tears streaming down my face. 

During these moments, I have to remind myself that my children don't see things the way I do. They don't attach emotions to situations the way I do because they haven't reached that point in maturity or development. They ask questions as questions to ask. The unfortunate part is it triggers so many emotions within myself regarding my experiences, my past, and the future I hope my children do not have to experience. 

***

Within the same week, we had another conversation on the way to school. I took a different route than usual because of changing traffic patterns. We passed a cemetery.

Mommy, is this where dead people are? Yes.

Where are they? They're buried under the ground.

How? You have to dig holes.

Oh.

And as abruptly as the conversation started, it ended. What my daughter doesn't know is that I know someone buried at that cemetery. And one of these days, I need to go and see her.

I want to answer her questions truthfully and I want her to continue asking me questions like this for the rest of her life. But they will always hold a weight for me that she can't see. These are the moments I never anticipated or planned for, but I am now discovering and accepting as they come. I always knew my life would be a little harder than most. But I didn't actually know how hard it could be. Until now. 

Two Decades of Grey: Grade School

When I was in kindergarten, my mother was in her early 40s. She was considered one of the older parents of that generation. She also had a very even sprinkle of salt and pepper grey hair. I have memories of her coloring it occasionally, but she wasn't diligent about it, and I don't think she wanted to be. I have a clear memory of a boy in my kindergarten class asking me if the woman picking me up was my grandmother. That was the first negative impression left on me regarding grey hair. I knew my mother had grey hair, and I knew it wasn't her original hair color. I'm not saying natural because natural changes...it's whatever grows out of your head. And I was intuitive enough to understand that visual greys led someone to think you were older than you actually were. This is one of the earliest moments where I planted an idea in my head: I wanted to have kids early. Mentally, I didn't want to be the mother of a kindergartener and being mistaken for her grandmother. 

I know he didn't mean anything by asking me that - it's an innocent question trying to clarify a potential confusion. But I also know as a young child myself, it left an impression, one that still trails me in my shadows. I see it first-hand now in my own kindergartener. She surprises me daily with the questions she asks me and random conversations we have.

***

I was in grade school when my mother found my first grey hair. I remember it as being 4th grade. My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer within the last year. She saw it one afternoon and said with a sad voice, "You have a grey hair already." Her words held the weight of someone who walked the exact same path - she indeed had. I still have a fear I will be in her shoes from the other side. 

Besides this memory, I don't actually recall my mother commenting on my grey hair for the rest of her life. Maybe she didn't because she knew what it was like to be the young girl with premature grey hairs. Maybe she didn't because she was busy researching and finding the best doctors to consult to help her fight for her life. Maybe she didn't because she didn't care, and there were only a few - literally, countable on one hand at the time. I think this has been a secret blessing because if I remember my mother commenting on this, it would have tainted our relationship even more. So I'm glad she didn't, or I'm glad I don't remember. 

***

Sometime in the last ten years, it hit me that my mother had youthful skin. Even despite losing her hair due to all the treatments she was undergoing, her face looked young. I remember taking one of the last photos I remember with her on my 11th birthday. And for the longest time, it was very hard for me to look at the photo because all I saw were the effects of the cancer, the chemo, the radiation, and I didn't see the mother I knew as a child. 

That's actually not the last photo we have together. I found one from the summer I won grand prize at a piano competition. It was two years before she died. She'd lost even more hair. But she was happy, and she was next to me. Her face is so cute. 

I used to be ashamed of these photos. I didn't want to see my mother in photos because it solidified the horrors and the fears of what she experienced. It made my own trauma and scars that much more real. But I cherish these now. 

I miss the girl in these pictures. She was young, naive in the right ways, and simple. It's sad how with wisdom and knowledge come a layer of heaviness and burden. 

That was middle school. 

Child Logic

I didn't get to enjoy my daughter when she was three years old. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I had a one year old also, so life was very busy. I don't remember if she did cute, quirky things. She probably did. She probably also had the unreasonable toddler logic which all parents experience at some point or another. 

Now that my youngest is three, I've had the time and energy to pay attention to him and notice all of his quirks and complications, both cute and annoying. I do enjoy the time when I get to take him around with me by himself and although it's not intentional one on one time, I do enjoy it differently than taking both my children out. 

Last week, we had finished our homework time in the car and big sister was in school. He and I went to get gas for the car and then I asked him where he wanted to go. His choices were Lowe's or Walmart. He giggled from the backseat and mumbled something, but he didn't really give me an answer. So I kept driving. Both locations were pretty close to each other. When I was nearing a fork in the directions, I asked him again where he wanted to go. Again, he giggled and mumbled something I couldn't make out. I told him I would decide and made the executive decision to go to Lowe's.

Now, it's January. It's not planting season. We didn't need anything from Lowe's. But I chose Lowe's anyway because it had been a while since I'd gone. Also, their restrooms are cleaner and the stalls are larger. One of the things we do while waiting to pick up his sister is find a place for both of us to use the restroom. Small perk and hassle of being potty trained, but I'll take it. So Lowe's it was. 

I pulled into the parking lot, parked the car, and opened his door. Immediately, I saw he was about to lose it:frowny mouth, sad eyes, with that I'm-about-to-burst-out-crying face. I asked him what was wrong, and asked him if he didn't want to go to Lowe's. He shook his head. I sighed and told him we'd go to Walmart. It was not worth a fit over literally nothing. So I got back in the car, left the Lowe's parking lot, and was on my way to Walmart. 

About halfway there, a couple minutes after we'd left Lowe's, I saw he had calmed down and was in a better mood. I asked him, "Why didn't you want to go to Lowe's?"

You know what he told me? He didn't want to see the spooky. The. Spooky. That wasn't even at Lowe's anymore because it was January and Halloween was long over. 

The spooky at Lowe's when they actually had it set up.
One of my children loves the spooky and the other doesn't care for it. 

I was relieved he had given me a reason why he didn't want to go to Lowe's, but I was also internally face-palming at his logic. After we'd parked at Walmart, I told him that the spooky was no longer at Lowe's and they'd put it away. I asked him if we could go to Lowe's next time. He nodded his head. Then we headed into Walmart for our normal routine of hitting up the potty and the clearance aisle together.