A second gray hair, a rite of passage and a metaphor.

I found and pulled my first gray hair about a year ago, thankfully it took a year to find another one at at 34. I was getting ready this morning, did a final spray of my hair and was just having the "this is a good hair day" thought going through my head when I saw this gray hair emerging from the part in my hair. The light hit it just right and the "good hair day" thought fleeted fast as the gray hair seemed to exclaim itself brighter and brighter amongst my dark brown hair. I grabbed the tweezers and plucked the strand from my hair wondering how I had not noticed it before as it was now a little over an inch in length.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a gray hair bashing person, I am not fearful of age or the changing of my skin, hair and overall appearance as I age. Though I pulled out this morning's gray hair, I at the same time felt a sense of a rite of passage in this thing called adulthood. Like maybe this gray hair was that of a lesson learned, an obstacle conquered or a hinderance plucked away from my life and I was instantly given the explanation of where this gray hair came from and what it represented. You see I've had a conflict with someone for a few months now and yesterday, we sat down and had a time of reconnection and resolve to work things out. We equally agreed that the longer we had let the conflict go on without addressing it, the worse it had gotten. Ignoring conflict did not make it go or fade away, ignoring the hurts and offenses had only made them grow in substance and grow the distance between us. Our time together yesterday was long overdue, much needed and well served and all parties walked away from the conversation with offenses dropped, hurts extinguished and a fresh and positive outlook on the restored relationship. With the conflict gone, things can return back to normal with no residual evidence...such is the case with my unwelcomed gray hair.

My gray strand was not something that just came up overnight, the longer I overlooked it the longer it grew. The longer I thought about the hair and the metaphor that had been revealed to me in my bathroom mirror, I wondered how fast hair grows. Being the googler I am, I googled it to find that hair grows at a rate of about half an inch per month. How's that for confirmation? At an inch long, my gray hair had been growing the entire time of this conflict. Yet as quickly as I noticed and plucked it away, my hair had once again returned to normal with no indication of it ever being there. It is the same with resolved conflict and forgiveness in the relationships with those we love. Unlike a head full of gray hair, we can not cover offenses and conflict in a relationship with a bottle of hair dye. We have to address conflicts that come up at the first inclination, indication and instance to prohibit them to grow into something bigger and unmanagable. That way relationships can return to what they once were and grow in beauty.