I have often been described as a “stressy” kind of person. If I’m not doing a million things, I tend to get bored. Nothing fuels me quite like the rush of having to pull an all-nighter to get an essay done, and just barely finishing it before the deadline.
However.
One thing I never considered was that my actions might have consequences.
Let me set the scene: Friday night, in the middle of dinner at the Jewish society. I walk to the bathroom to check that my hair and makeup still looks fairly okay, with no idea of what is about to hit me. How clueless I was, how young and innocent…
What I was confronted – no, attacked – with was the sight of a grey hair. I have pretty dark hair, and so it stuck out like a wine stain on a wedding dress. I am all of 19 years old, and already my hair is turning grey.
Shocked, confused, appalled, I did what any rational person would do: I immediately texted my friends about it. I got one response back from multiple people: “that’s hot.” Tip: if you ever find a grey hair, make sure you text the friends who like GILFs.
I think that you should be allowed to have a mid-life crisis as soon as you find a grey hair. And so that’s exactly what I did.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my life. Would I be happy if I died tomorrow? Would I have had a good life? Forced to confront my own mortality by a silly little grey hair.
I have quite significant fears surrounding ageing. I wake up on a regular basis slightly shocked that I’m already more than halfway through university. I used to be quite a go-with-the-flow kind of person, but can you still do that when you’re an adult?
Even the word “adult” feels foreign to me. Perhaps I’ll feel different when I’m no longer technically a teenager, but the idea of a job and a mortgage and responsibilities terrifies me. Partially, that’s why the idea of academia is so tempting to me – I’d get to stay in education forever.
But I’ve been trying to be better – a better person, a better adult. I’ve started keeping a diary, started to make sure that my calendar is up-to-date and actually reminds me of where I need to be and when. I’ve started to think about who I want to be, when the rest of my hair is grey. Do I want to be a successful businesswoman? Do I want a quiet life in a cottage somewhere? Is it possible that a middle ground exists, and that I could be happy there?
Thinking about the future won’t ever stop terrifying me. And yet… there’s a certain comfort in it. Picturing living with people I love, having kids of my own, sending them off to university and watching them experience the same feelings I once experienced. There’s a certain comfort in knowing that YA dystopian novels lied to me. The world doesn’t end when you’re 16. You don’t need to start a revolution to be fulfilled. I think I grew up idolising these figures: Katniss Everdeen, Tris Prior, and I believed that adulthood meant tragedy. It has been terrifying to realise that I’m wrong, because that means I have options. Ever indecisive, it is terrifying to realise that I get to choose how my life turns out.
And yet it is beautiful to have these choices. It’s part of why I like history so much: I love the idea of humanity as a progression. I’m learning that that applies to the individual just as much as the collective.
I am ultimately very grateful for that grey hair. I thought a lot about pulling it out – I thought it was a blemish. But in the end, it’s just a symbol of my progression. It’s a mark of all the long hours I’ve worked, all the stressful situations I went through and then came out the other side of, only slightly worse for wear.
Is it silly to ascribe such meaning to a grey hair? Probably, but I am a historian after all. And it’s not just about grey hairs, not really. The grey hair was what made it obvious to me, but it’s in every stretch mark, every wrinkle, every badly-faded scar. It’s funny to feel old at what is, realistically, a young age. I know it means I will age poorly, most likely. But for now, I will take these things as reminders. Reminders of all the life I’ve lived so far, and everything I’ll do in the future.