You

work out religiously, hardly consume alcohol, don’t smoke and avoid sugars,

fat, gluten, carbs…pretty much everything that has flavour.

 But you get up

one morning ready to take on the day ahead and your worst fear is now being

realised; you’re going gray.

It’s not the bathroom lighting, it’s not the angle and

it’s certainly not the mirror playing tricks on you. That’s your first real

life gray hair staring back at you.

Disbelief turns into denial which becomes despair. With

all your healthy decisions (or not) and taking care of your body (we hope), Father

Time has crept up on you beacaude, despite our best efforts, we cannot stop the

ageing process.

For some people, gray hairs are not as traumatic as

others. Most men embrace it as they say it give them ‘silver highlights’ and

makes them look distinguished. Some women choose to add a rinse to make it pop

so they mature gracefully and revel in the compliments. Others do not see it as

anything complimentary but rather a condition to either endure or immediately

hide under a bottle of Dark and Lovely or L’Oreal.

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The

fact is, you can get gray hairs at any age. Indeed, you have teenagers with

streaks of gray in their heads already. Premature grays are generally genetic

and there is usually nothing you can do to stop it. When that first gray hair

start winking at you, don’t get mad and grab your tweezers as they say if you

kill the first one, twenty more will come to the funeral. Stay your hand as

plucking them can actually make your hair look thinner in parts and you do not

want to be both graying AND bald.

Going

gray is almost like a rite of passage; a sign that you have lived, loved,

laughed and experienced loss but are still standing. So whether you choose to

embrace it or colour it some shade of the sunset, remember that this marks the

next chapter in one’s life and should be something to smile about.