That First Gray Hair (No, the OTHER Kind)
Reflections on the privilege of aging
This week I was all set to post about the intricacies of polyamory, nonmonogamy, and the clusterfucks they can sometimes become, but life had other plans. Despite my lofty goals, I got hit with a few technical issues at home that completely upended my schedule and just about every aspect of my life. So you're stuck with something that hit me today as I was sitting in my stylist’s chair getting a terrible haircut, coupled with a later conversation I had with Mercy.
Regarding the bad haircut, I can’t really fault him. He’s a good stylist. But today he broke the news that he was leaving town, and that I needed to find someone else. Apparently, to soften the blow, he decided to give me the haircut he's been dying to give me for the past three visits; a “last hurrah,” if you will. Bless him for thinking that I could pull off a cut and style of a 25-year-old. Beyond this short-term issue, I am now faced with the possibility of having to find stylists in the neighboring ski-town where men’s haircuts are called “experiences” and cost well over $100. I cannot spend $100 every six weeks.
But all this is beside the point. Anyway …
I was sitting in my stylist’s chair watching my hair clippings fall to the floor. There was so much more gray falling with the usual brown. As he continued to create an alarming swoop to my hair which I could only partially see because I didn’t have my glasses on, I started thinking about aging. I’ll be 53 in less than a month; on May 4th, to be exact (if you you want to make a joke about me being born on “Star Wars Day,” please remember that I am older than Star Wars and saw the original in a theater when I was 5).
As I watched the grays falling, I can’t say that I felt old, per se. I mean, I don’t consider myself old at all. But once in a while, the little reminders of aging do come up. I realized, however, that of all of the things aging-related that have given me the biggest existential panic, there is one that, so far, remains the worst.
No, it wasn’t the time I sneezed on a walk when I was 30 and popped a hernia.
No, It wasn't the time I had Cool Whip (for the last time) and my stomach decided to stage a coup to install itself as the dominant political power of my body. My stomach’s regime rules to this day.
No, It wasn't the day even the day I had to schedule my first colonoscopy.
It was the day in my early 30s that I looked down and saw my first gray pubic hair.
I'm sure some of my readers have experienced this, and for many who have, it was probably the exact same day you decided that shaving your pubic hair really was more aesthetically pleasing.
There was something keenly jarring about seeing that first gray pube, even though I had already sprouted a couple of random gray hairs on my head (which always for some reason grew in a different direction than the rest of my hair). I remember getting a little dizzy and having to steady myself against the sink.
I walked out of the bathroom in a haze, probably a little pale. I sat down at the table in our then-apartment and held my head in my hands, much to the dismay of my wife. She was genuinely concerned. I could only muster 2 words:
“Gray pube.”
She leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and nodded in her cold, Capricorn way.
“Oh. Yeah. I found my first one a few months ago. I plucked it out.”
I puckered, and did that thing where your head kind of does a double-take because you're trying to process several ridiculous pieces of information at the same time. All I could muster was "didn't that hurt?"
"Immensely. But I wanted to scare the others that were thinking of popping out."
"Good thinking."
I, on the other hand, just kind of slumped in my chair and did what early-thirties me did to deal with trauma: I poured myself a "reverse Tanq and tonic," which consisted of a glass full of Tanqueray with a shot of tonic.
We were in our early 30s and were still poor grad students, making ends meet by piecing together adjuncting and part-time jobs. No children. We kept late hours. We worked really hard but partied harder. We would still get carded when we bought alcohol, for fucks' sake. We generally were so worried about making it through the present that the future was just something we didn’t have the luxury of thinking about.
But that grey pube – for me – was an undeniable, almost unbearable, fact of aging.
I have to say, after that, all the rest of the age-related things before and after never really compared to the feeling of seeing that sole gray hair. I know full well that there are PLENTY of other, very serious medical and emotional events, traumas, and tragedies that can throw us into a deeply difficult place in regard to aging and mortality. But if we’re lucky enough not to experience those big events, it’s often the mundane and (looking back) silly things that can throw us into an existential spiral.
When I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma a few years later (something that killed my grandmother a couple of years before), I most certainly did have to reckon with my mortality. But dealing with your mortality is different than dealing with the facts of aging.
I wish I could bring this back around to something kinky and profound. I mean, I look to the community and I am so often bolstered by the fact that aging has not stopped so many of us from playing in dungeon spaces and being proud of our bodies. I aged out of TNG-nights1 at dungeons LONG ago. I am happier in my 50s than I’ve been at any other stage in my life, and that’s truly a gift.
But if I must make a lesson out of this, all I will say is that when I do get a little down because of gray hairs (in all the places now), age-inappropriate haircuts, or the way my 30-something slave will tease me about my slow texting and instagram habits, I remind myself that aging is actually a privilege; especially when I think of absent friends who were taken from this world way too young. Those annoying aging milestones are ones that some of our loved ones never got to experience themselves.
So there … there's some existential perspective for everyone.
But lest I leave us on a down-note, I'll say that your first grey pube, or your first hernia, or your first time NOT being carded, all of them are rites of passage, and they are all testaments to our own unique blends of resilience, good choices, luck, and privilege.
So, for those who have not yet hit this particular milestone, when that first gray pube does show itself:
Yes, re-evaluate your life.
Yes, Invest in good trimmers that won't nick your scrotum, labia, or other sensitive bits.
Yes, have some Cool Whip if you can still eat it.
But remember, plucking that fucker out (or having your personal sadist pluck it for you), will not scare the others from coming.
You made it this far. Age majestically.
TNG = “The Next Generation.” At one of the dungeons I frequent, it’s kinksters under 35.