Welcome to The Mothering Crone

I have arrived......

It has been almost a little over a year since I decided with my husband help and urging to let my hair grow out to its new natural shade. It had been years since I last was anything near my natural color.  Since then the color was changing from a deep chestnut to shades of GRAY.   Needless to say for that reason only plus the fact I wanted adventure in my life, I dyed my hair in shades of reds, black, purples, and when I was feeling natural to shades of browns.
"I don't know why you just didn't keep your natural color", he would comment. (He was smart enough and too well train to ever complain.)
"I want excitement in my life. I want adventure." I would laugh back, "Besides I now I am getting grayer and I am not ready to be old!" 
"Baby, ain't I enough excitement and adventure in your life?" he would joke back. "Besides I would never dye my hair. I like things natural!"
And so for years we would make all the jokes about going gray and getting older.  What really made me  decide to keep dying it was an incident many years back. I was getting the gray before him  (an insult in my mind from nature of course!) and I was younger than he is! ( okay  so technically I am only 1 year 2 months and 3 days younger but still!).  We were used car shopping on a very low and tight budget.  Now if the salesman was trying to impress me or be kind I don't know either nor do I give a rat's butt then or now.  Steve and I was looking for a car. I had stopped there days earlier and scouted out some to consider.   Now with my older hippie looking husband with me, we wondered the lot and soon Mr. Ain't getting this sale came over to help.
Being a good southern gentleman he says " Howdy can I help you folks with anything?"  He take a moment and then realizes that I am the same person that has visited the lot earlier that week. He smiles, " Well I see you brought your son back with you this time." Can we say WRONG thing to say.
At that point my husband laughs and says " No, I am not her son but her husband." By this point as I turn heel and stomp to our old junker, Steve continues, " I think you just lost a sale!" And as soon was we arrived home after a stop at the drug store, I dyed my hair to cover the sprinkling of gray.
Now, it is years later and I am starting to settle in to the fact that I am fifty something and you know I might be able to handle the silver. (I refuse to call it gray.) On my husband the silver streaks (he isn't even gray yet just streaks) looks great and on me I wasn't too sure if I wanted to do this.  So as the saying goes only your hair dresser knows for sure (plus your husband or significant other) the  long year process of cutting and letting nature(with a little help from the bottle) does its magic.
Finally the day arrives that all color has been either eliminated by nature or the scissors and I am beautifully silvered with a great new hairstyle.  During the time my sweet husband kept the Barbra Bush joke to a minmum and was very supportive, even when I threaten to dive into the bottles.  One dye bottle cause of the gray and then one wine bottle to drown my gray.   I even started "growing up again"and decided that it ain't too bad being older. At fifty two I still had lots of life, be it slower now to live.  My silver wasn't my mom's gray after all.  And hey menopause isn't that bad.
Yes I know I look older but I am much more vibrant now than forty. Life in the fifties is great and I still can get up and run with the pack. I can deal with the aging. I have years to go before I am truly old.  This was part of my mantra.
One evening, on our way home from his work and my CPR class (which proved to me I am getting older!) we stopped at a local Wendys to get dinner cause I just was hurting too bad too cook.  We ordered our food.  As I got ready to pay for it the young twenty something lady at the cash register asked me "Would you like to use your senior discount with that mad'm?"
My husband looked at me. I could see he was holding his breath in wonder how I would react.  I started laughing so hard that I couldn't stop and yep, I wet my pants (another blessing from getting silver).  Steve put his arm around me as I paid for dinner and say "Baby you have arrived!"
A week later I went to the same Wendy's for lunch and was not asked for my senior discount.  I brought lunch to him at the plant and when he got in the car to eat it he asked "Senior discount?"
"Nope" I said  "my senility made me forget to ask for it!"