Gray

I had the most random of asks the other day, “when did you start getting gray?” from the coolest of strange kid I work with, the one I would have befriended in high school to protect him or maybe he would have befriended me the same in my own strangeness as having a wingman is always welcome no matter the matter’s.

But well, I don’t know Tim. It just is, as when I wasn’t gray I just wasn’t. He’s too young to ask of such things though, those fears, and if they are such, they are a ways away for him so he has time. But it got’s me to thinkin’s, when exactly was that?

My dad had a small gray spot on the side of his head when he was young, a little Jupiter storm circle that just eventually stormed over his whole planet and threw his cosmos in a gray whirl as he managed an oversized family at too young an age while still trying to start his life but always just looking “old”. Now I don’t have a spot that has threatened to take over my whole noggin eventually …

… but wow, how long have I grayed?

That is a question.

Maybe it was the relationships I no longer wish to pursue and those times I was wrong, dead wrong, and tried to backpedal on things said that I regret. Gray hair “pop!”

Or maybe it was the times, in said no longer pursued relationships, where I was right, dead right, but remembered I wasn’t wearing a cup and backed off to let them work out just the same in the end … another gray hair “pop!”

That’s why I have my little set of clippers that I bought from Walgreens a number of years ago for just 15 bucks I said to him, for when you stand in a dry shower, naked, with a broom and a dust pan at hand and you shave it all off, down to the hair nub, stubble, so you no longer think of such things. Hopefully there is no mirror in the bathroom distance to refer to by the way, no one needs to see that, not even yourself, plus you can’t see the back of your head anyway.

But I am gray now, not quite totally so, but surely getting there, no swept hair almost bald shower stalls with a broom and dustpan on a lean, waiting, will hide that, and maybe the reason he asked, looking at this old dude who still says “dude” and work wingman, was that he really was curious about his future hair, and his future old in general that we were all were curious about when we were young (for just seconds – he’s thinking about this way too much if that is the case) or it was just him making weird casual conversation, as he is wont to do

Truthfully, the graying doesn’t really bother me all that much, I am more concerned with small hedges that can sprout out of my ears, the wild bushy that the eyebrows can be sometimes and the occasional errant nose hair.

It just comes to pass Tim, this gray hair thing. But I will offer what I can if you have questions. I am no sage, nobody would want me to be one believe me, but I have some life lesson tales that end like Brothers Grimm stories to learn from (and some not so much … “let’s dance on the bar!!”) and now a gray hair “pop!” unless of course it was actually just weird casual conversation.

Then, well, we can go with that, for fun, otherwise you’re on your own kid.