Fifty shades of me

Colour definitely influences people. I have an affinity for black. Yes, I’m not ashamed to say that I wear black a lot. I also like grey and brown… and navy. Wearing black has brought judgment, but in no way was I ever crippled by it.

I was 20 and a student teaching in Heidelberg. The teacher in the classroom where I was assigned to work was a new widow. At the end of the first week, she was up in arms. I was, apparently, too young to wear black and grey and brown and navy. Well, that was the content of my cupboard and my budget was non-existent. I had no other colours to wear and she had to deal with it for two weeks.

Teaching in black has educated me in many ways. Some of my colleagues, parents and learners played the roles of style coach and psychiatrist. What I learned from them back then was the following: I was too young to wear black; I was considered rebellious or evil; I was a member of the Goth subculture; and I was suffering from depression. I was even told to see a psychologist. While each encounter offered me the gift of greater self-awareness, I remained quite comfortable wearing black.

Just to be clear, at the age of 52, I seriously couldn’t care less what people think about the clothes I choose to wear. Actually, I’ve never worried about it. I hate shopping. I really do. I hate spending money just as much as I hate shopping. When I have to buy clothes, it’s a challenge that I do not like. Because I have a myriad of decisions to make on a daily basis, I see no point in deliberating over the colour of my clothes. I enter the shop, find whatever I can that’s black and comfortable, and I’m done. It’s probably ten minutes of my life that I’ll always regret wasting.

Make-up, perfume, fashionable outfits, shoes and handbags to match the dress, and jewellery have never impressed me at all. I don’t even have a handbag with all the goodies that most women carry around with them. I just up and go! It’s quite easy for me to be able to move around without the baggage. It’s liberating. Now, before you start psycho-analyzing me about that let me tell you about my hair. That’s the whole purpose of this blog entry.

For the past three or four months, I’ve been attempting to grow out the grey. It just felt like the natural thing to do. I was tired of dyeing away the grey. Now, as I’ve mentioned, colour definitely influences people. The criticism I got for wearing black isn’t anything near to the maddening criticism I’ve been getting for walking around semi-grey. Suddenly, I’m too young to be grey. I’m supposed to be colourful so that the learners will enjoy my lessons more. I’m ‘letting myself go’ (… to which I must add, when have I ever not let myself go? … because isn’t it me who spends so much time making other people happy that I’ve become invisible to myself – to such an extent that the very people who judge me are now telling me to stop helping others and start focusing on self-care and self-love and self-enrichment?).

I think the fuss is really all about how I’m doing it. You see, I didn’t go to a hairdresser to have my hair coloured grey – the fashion trend of late. I chose to do it naturally. I honestly think that dyeing my hair doesn’t define me. People fear aging. I don’t. I’m happy to be 52. I’m happy to be grey. So, excuse me if I say, it’s my hair, my choice, and my life. If I want to walk around with grey hair, let it be. No one in Africa has died because of it.

When it comes to criticism, being as sensitive as I am, I’ve learned to be resilient. I know that another person’s perspective is his/her idea of reality, and reality is merely a persistent illusion. Imperfect perspectives about my hair’s colour don’t have to affect me at all. Why? Well, as humans, we are conditioned to start dyeing our hair in our thirties to disguise the natural process of aging. From this disguise, we shape our identity. Subconsciously, we live and express this identity and form our own perceptions of what reality should be; hence, we feel younger. If other people deem it necessary to feel younger, so be it. That’s not my reality.

I can live with fifty shades of black (clothes) and grey (hair). I’m okay! This simply means it’s not me who needs psychotherapy, is it? Well, not about black and grey… yet!