A Hairy Topic

This blog is called Mastering My Midlife and as a woman, when you hit that "midlife" age-range, a whole host of issues can crop up. Health issues, beauty, finances, all sorts - it's a wide range of subjects that some of us (read:ME) are reluctant to talk about. But since I letcha know that I was suffering from vertigo, I thought I'd post an update along with a conversation about something I've been thinkin' about for a long long time - HAIR.

So here's the CliffNotes catch-up version - I was getting ready to walk out the door to head to work (at the end of APRIL for crying out loud!), bent over to lace up my Chucks and when I stood up the world was a tilt-a-whirl. I sat on the sofa to rest for what I thought would be a five to ten minute bout of dizziness and it turned into an eight-week nightmare. More or less. I started feeling a bit better two weeks ago, but still stuffer from the spins - in fact had to stop everything today over lunch because the ground was moving.

Apparently, the long and the short of it is that I am pretty darned anemic. Like... I've been told for years that I had an issue with lack of iron. But like the idiot who sees the oil light in the car flash and just ignores it, the problem did not go away. Instead, like the car, my engine finally seized up. My body said enough and everything came to a grinding halt. During that crazy eight weeks of spin, I was running back and forth to the doctor and managed to catch the mother of all flus and became a fever-riddled, delirious mess on top of everything else. I think the message was pretty clear. 

Slow the fuck down, Dear One. So I did. I have. I am.

I am more or less on the mend now (ish). I'm off work for the summer. Meaning, no writers' rooms for me. I will continue to write, but from home... Where I can stop and rest when needed. Pay close attention to my diet and adjust as required. I feel like quite the old lady.

The good news is that for the past two weeks I have (barely) eased back into some simple movement. Only twice a week for 20 minutes. Did I say I felt like an old lady? I meant a geriatric patient. 

Thank the good Lordissa for LekFit who has little mini-classes posted to her site. I have been able to participate in ballet arms and standing legs. The reason I'm finally posting now is because I am actually starting to believe this nightmare will end (fingers crossed, touch wood, pray to God etc) and I heard on this past week's Insta Live Stream thingie that tomorrow's In Studio class is going to be working with the disk. That's my all time favorite of Lauren's tools, so I am going to attempt to do the class. We'll see how far I get. Wish me luck. 

Anyhoo, with all this mandatory bed-rest (which has been absolute torture) I've had a lot of time to think. About all kinds of things. How to turn the world vegan, how to dominate television with my own shows, how to overcome my fear of elevators, how to develop a taste for blackstrap molasses, just all sorts. But one of the things that kept coming up for me was my hair. My hair of all things. I'm basically clinging to my very life (being dramatic) and I'm worried about my hair?!?

In a word? Yes. At one point through all of this, I managed to drag my dizzy self to the pharmacy, pick up a box of hair color, and color the front half of my hair. I was too dizzy to do the back but God forbid I die with my roots showing. That was kind of a wake-up call. I mean, I can't go to work, I can't even keep a glass of water down, but I'm dying my hair? Really? Something had to change.

So, I got on the old Google Machine which led to a deep dive down a million YouTube channels, where I got hooked on all these transformation "transition" videos of women who have chosen to stop being a slave to color. Lemme tell you I became somewhat inspired. I've been toying with the idea for years, years I tell you and have discussed it with a number of friends - three of whom have already elected to go grey. And then, as if it was a message from the heavens, I had a lunch meeting with a couple of producers that I've known and worked with for years, but hadn't seen in awhile. And when they showed up, Emma (who as you may have guessed is one of the producers) had grown out her grey and holy crap did she look good. She has the most magnificent green eyes which I hadn't ever really noticed before, but they just sparkled under those silver strands she was rocking.

I thought, if she can do it and look this fantastic, why can't I? I'm hypothyroid and anemic, so my hair has really started to thin out. Add to that the heaps of chemicals I pile on every two weeks to keep my dark tresses dark - yeah you read that right, every TWO WEEKS, I figured my hair could use a break. So...

I'm stopping the color. There! Said it out loud. Now it's done.

It's been three weeks and whoa do I have roots. But I feel differently about them this time around. I have the entire summer ahead of me to lay low and grow my hair. By the fall I hope to have a better idea of how grey or silver or white I actually am and make a more informed decision of how to proceed. Some women have done high-lights and low-lights to get rid of what they call their "skunk line" - a term I personally don't love. It's like calling the backs of our arms bat-wings if they aren't perfect and toned. Let's not do that to ourselves. Other women have bleached out their hair to create a softer combination of an ashy blond and white mix, while others have continued to color the part down the centre of their head so that the top bit continues to have color and they let the grey grow in underneath. And finally, there are those who've just said "fuck it" and let it grow, roots, skunk line, demarkation lines be damed. At the moment I'm in the last camp. 

I love hats. Sun hats, page-boy hats, ball caps, knit caps - all kinds of hats so during the worst parts I figure (cue Beyonce) If I don't love it, then I better put a hat on it!

My mind-set is this -- we have all had times in our lives where we've gone to the salon and done something crazy. That tight-curled spiral perm, the pixy cut, the weird bob that never worked out - whatever it was, we were stuck with it. So we sucked it up, resigned ourselves to the fact that we had a style we didn't love and we grew it out. I am not prepared to shave my head and go through all the crap stages of going from short to long simply to avoid the root line. Nope, I'll suffer through that knowing it will look yucky for a good year or two (yikes, I hope it doesn't take longer than that) and then hopefully come out on the other side with beautiful, original, one-of-a-kind silvery tresses that will become my trademark. Alternatively, it'll look like crap and I'll run crying to the salon to say fix this and will be a prisoner of the color for the rest of my life.

In the mean time, I'll be having a conversation with my stylist this weekend to keep her abreast of what my plans are. My hair tends to go reddish in the summer sun, so may have to go in and get it toned back to it's cooler hue in the fall, but I am determined to see it through.

I've pinned some gorgeous pics, I've following a few beautiful silver-sisters on Insta for continued inspiration and I've gone public here. So hope I can pull it off. These are the looks I'm currently in love with...

These woman are all older than me, but there's one girl on YouTube who's only 39 and she looks amazing! She lives in the same city as me so it's going to be hard not to stalk her and pepper her with a million questies! Lol. I apologize in advance Erica, if I bump into you on the subway and completely geek out.

So I think I'm ready. I'd love to hear your thoughts on transitioning. (That's the term I'm using because it sounds the most positive and life-affirming.)

Also, if you're curious to know what my iron loaded diet 2.0 consists of, lemme know and I'll put together a post on that.

Loads of love,
Shan