Single grey hair (I’m getting old?!)

It started with a single grey hair.

My partner and I were staying with friends on the Easter weekend. Getting dressed the next morning,  I noticed a single, solitary grey hair amongst my fulsome head of stylishly salon-coloured, bob-styled locks. In an instant, I felt the spunk drain right outta me. As women do in these circumstances, I called our friend aside, and we shared a giggle and the mock horror over the impending doom of my attractiveness.

A few days later, (after the clinical shock had passed?), panic set in. My head awash with fear of impending middle-age, I lamented the multitude of experiences quickly approaching their expiry date in my life:

• Short skirts
• Random acts of reckless fun
• Walking down the isle

Was this single grey hair the omen of the beginning of the end of my sensuality?

I ran screaming into my bathroom with a bottle of hair-dye under one arm and a bottle of red wine under the other.

Over the next couple of hours, as I lay relaxing in a hot bath letting the hair dye and red wine take effect, the answer to my question – which started as a still, small voice whispering from behind the shrill panic-stricken tabloid-infused vision of fading youthful beauty – came as somewhat of a relief.

Was my time as a woman running out? Well, no. I’m only now just hitting my stride. Now officially a thirty-something, I am a woman in charge of my own destiny. I’ve had a wonderful marriage, and am now blessed with a large dollop of self-awareness, two beautiful young boys to share my journey and the beginnings of a successful career. I have a full schedule of adorable friends and a long list of things I want to achieve.

So what if my days of short skirts are behind me? I haven’t worn them in years. They’ve never looked  good on my tree-trunk legs, only now I have the self-awareness to know what suits me – and what doesn’t! When it comes to having a good time, not being impulsive or irresponsible doesn’t mean I don’t have fun! and as for getting married? Been there. Done that. I’d never say never, but I’m certainly not sitting around waiting for someone else to make me feel whole. Pining is for teenagers.

Grey hair? *meh* I’m not scared. I’m too busy living!