Senior moment

On Saturday night, my mom and I went to watch the most recent of the Twilight moves, Breaking Dawn (part 1). Our teenage cousin got us both into Twilight; we've read the books and have seen the previous movies. This one was sweet (they really could have put the whole book into one movie) but this isn't a movie review.

With youth flooding the ticketing desk, we get directed to the popcorn counter - the lady can issue tickets from the one terminal. We tell her the movie we want to see. We select our seats. She says, "That's one adult and one senior". So I ask, "What's senior - 60?". "Yes," she says. My mom is not yet 60 - she's got eight months to go. But I just couldn't bring myself to correct the young lass; she would have been so embarrassed. Instead I give my mom a big hug.

We watch the movie. Lots of smooching between Edward and Bella. Jacob is growing up and looking more dishy; I can see what my cousin sees in him (Team Jacob). Mom and I are Team Edward (although I'm way more into the most delightfully wicked vampire sheriff, Eric - Alexander Skardgard - from True Blood). I don't get what Edward sees in Bella - she reminds me of Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Snivelling. Anyhoo...

We walk out of the theatre and mom nudges me.

"It's because of you".

"Me what?" I ask.

"She thought I was a senior because of you. It doesn't happen when Judy and I go to movies." Judy and mom are similar age.

Indeed, having a daughter with a good dose of grey hair, despite my youthful complexion, would scoot mom right into the 60s classification. We both think it is helluva funny. As we walk she keeps poking me and saying again, "It's you".

Two years ago I took the plunge to never colour my hair again. Turning grey at a young age runs in my dad's family. He was completely silver in his mid 30s. My aunt says she was the same.

I found my first grey hairs at 21; more in my mid 20s and by 28 I was covering the grey with dyes close to my natural colour. Fed up with being a slave to colour (it's a pollutant, dries out your scalp and hair, my hair grows really fast and I think regrowth looks trashy), I decided to let the grey grow out. I chopped my hair short and it took a year to eliminate the colour residue. At the same time, mom took the plunge too. She reasoned that if her daughter is grey, she couldn't very well still be a brunette.

It was the best decision that we both could have made.

Grey is traditionally associated with aging. If someone has grey hair they couldn't possibly be young, could they? Of course they can. This is a nice article on MailOnline about "Why are today's women going grey at 25?".

I remember a spread in Time Magazine about Hillary Clinton, when she was running in the elections. The article was Hillary and some other women and it discussed whether it was 'right' for them to let their hair go grey or does grey hair make them old and past their sell-by date and thus not credible to be in positions of responsibility - or so public perception goes. Grrr... But look at George Clooney or Richard Gere... grey is sexy then.

Ja, just as the article I linked to above says,

"While men get given the silver fox sobriquet when they start to show signs of salt and pepper, when it comes to women grey equals grandma. From society’s perspective, a woman with grey hair is over the hill and has reached the end of her reproductive life."

In my book, grey is just a hair colour. It's my natural hair colour. Grey doesn't change my brain cells nor add another 20 years to the amount of time I've spent on the planet. But, it does get my mom into movies at R8.00 less for her ticket.

[Veteran 90s supermodel Kristen McMenamy has gone the grey route too - and it has given her modelling career a boost. She made the cover of VogueShe is now 46 - article on MailOnline and MSNBC Today (with photos of other silver foxes - male and female). I like.]