Two Decades of Grey: Here and Now

I took my kids to a dairy camp hosted by Tillamook at a local venue near us recently. The first time I saw it, the free tickets had sold out. Then, I saw the ad again and was able to book my kids and I free tickets. I didn't know what to expect going into the dairy camp because it was only slotted for 30 minutes. Not sure what was going to happen that was so spectacular in a half hour, but I figured it was worth a shot.

We arrived and we walked all the way around the building to locate the entrance. It was a bit deceiving because there were doors on the parking lot side, but they were not the entrance doors. Finally, we entered, checked in, and waited for our adventure.

The dairy camp was fun. My kids were old enough to enjoy it and not too old to be bored by it. The decor was my favorite part. Cheddar snack size portions made up the low walls to designate where to go. Tables were designed as ice cream pints. They had cream cheese blocks and tubs to stack and play with for one activity. The budget spent on design was spot on.

The kids even received cute little Tillamook bags at the end of their adventure. They clung onto them as we browsed the gift shop and in the car on the way home. But as soon as we made it home and got our shoes off, the bags were left in the back hallway. I retrieved them and took them for myself, so it's my cute little tote bag now. 

All in all, it was a fun adventure. Thank you, Tillamook, for hosting such a fun indoor children's activity during the summer. 

An unexpected side to bringing my kids to this dairy camp was discovering more about myself and how I wanted to proceed with my grey hair journey. Originally, I had planned this entire series and written out every story I wanted to share in a specific order. I've shared many of them with you throughout this year on my blog. Then, it came to the final few stories to end my series. That's where I got stuck. I wrote my first draft of this in April. I tried again about a month later. And I tried again this summer. All of those drafts got scrapped because I wasn't happy with the message they conveyed. Part of it was I didn't know what the clear message I wanted to convey was.

At this dairy camp, I found my answer.

***

When we first gathered to go in, the lady rounding us up had grey hair. Her color was completely natural and you could see the greys spread throughout her hair. But her face looked young. Her skin looked young. She had an energy about her which contrasted to the color of her hair. And she was doing her job appealing to this group of young children, working magic to open the secret door to our awaiting adventure. 

That's the person I want to be. As my hair goes ever more grey, I hope I can still exude youth in my face, my words, my personality. It takes an insane amount of self-acceptance to be able to face the world with so many greys at such an early age, but as time passes, I've learned to rest in the confidence. That's not to say I don't have bad days. I have plenty of bad days when I look in the mirror and the reflection staring back at me makes me feel like I'm an old lady. Those are the hard days. There are also good days when I look into the mirror and I feel they're not as pronounced as I thought they were. 

The reality is, both reflections are the same. It's true - different lighting and different hairstyles might look varied, but the hairs on my head are still the same. So the truth of the matter is perspective. 

As I get older each year, my need to "stay young" decreases little by little. After all, we all have to remember, aging is a privilege. It's not something everyone gets to experience either. So this concludes my series on two decades of grey. Writing it was cathartic for me and allowed me to love myself on a whole other spectrum.