Fade to White

I can't remember if my hair has ever been this long before.

I like long hair. I like long hair on my own self. My parents always told me that women usually cut their hair short when they got older, and that always worried me a bit. I do know quite a few people who, at some point in their 40's or 50's chopped their hair off to a pixie, or a spiky boy cut, or a "dyke" cut, or whatever. Call it what you will. It looks great on them, but terrifies me.

Usually a cut like that goes hand in hand with coloring. I think it's because the shorter length shows off the whites and the grays that the longer length usually covers up. I don't color my hair. I have always said I would grow old naturally, with no color in my hair at all. But why cut it shorter to show them off?

The other day I was sitting in a work meeting and playing with my split ends when one of my white hairs popped out at me. My hair goes to my waist, usually the whites are white up top only, but this hair was stark white all the way to the tip.

In fact, upon closer inspection, there were quite a few like that. In fact, it turns out I have a whole bunch of white hairs streaking through this frizzy near-black mess on my head.

Is this what aging is like? One day I'm my normal, usual self, and the next I look up and my features have morphed into something "other."