I was about fourteen the first time I colored my hair. I had what I now know was nice, thick, honeyed-brown locks that fell almost to my waist. At the time, however, I thought everything about my mane was humdrum. Sure, it was long, but wasn't everyones' in 1965? And healthy and shiny did not get cool points when the desired look had a scruffiness about it that scoffed at a youthful glow.

My heroes of the day were either jet-haired, like Grace Slick, or blond, like Marianne Faithful, and just-plain-brown seemed unadventurous and unattractive.

Even at that tender age I knew the hell that would be entered when dark hair went blond ... the never-ending "touching up of the roots" was a sentence I had no desire to pass upon myself. (These were the days before Courtney Love made black roots a fashion goal.) And going the other way, darker, didn't feel drastic enough a change.

I went red. Well, auburn. Well, actually, burgundy. And I used a color that washed out over a couple of months.

As the years went by, I occasionally colored for fun and change and distraction. Incremental shifts in tone and hue happened on whims or bets or special events, but I never developed a habit, or a color I liked better than my own enough to fuss with on a regular basis.

About ten years ago, though ...

Yep, the gray. The insidious, creeping gray. The few strays that soon take over a whole neighborhood of scalp, forcing all the shafts with color to go away and never return.

My sister-in-law is a hairdresser and was appalled at the thought that I might ignore the de-colorizing of my hair.

"You're too young to go gray," were the words she used to convince me that a trip to the salon was in order. At forty-four, the 'too young' bit was prime for debate, but I went for it anyway.

Not for the whole dye job, as it's not a look I like and it's way too much work. We compromised with highlights, and for a few years that did the trick. Weaving blond streaks in with my brown tricked the eye about the gray in the mix. Goody. And (a little good news about aging) because I had more and more gray coming in all the time, roots were not terribly obvious.

Eventually, however, lowlights were needed to balance out the highlights ... and all the gray ... so we alternated chemicals. One visit would be for blonding, the next for browning, and the sessions needed to be closer together to keep the balance looking natural.

Jane's not big on the foil-wrap technique, so every time I sat in her chair I had a tight rubber cap with little holes in it pulled over my head. This was not only uncomfortable even before she'd begin to pull strands of my hair through the holes with an embroidery hook, it was really silly looking ... like sitting in this rather public place with a big, ugly condom on my head. (You can guess what I called myself, can't you?)

A few years of this, and there wasn't much of my own hair color left. It had been stripped and striped so often that it seemed the only natural survivors were gray, and those could still be seen in abundance on close examination ... or in any photo taken, as I look pretty darned gray in just about every shot from the time.

So, I quit. No more color for this old girl. I had Jane chop off as much of the dye job as she could without leaving me looking like Sinead O'Connor, and that was the end of that.

My hair is long again, and it's more gray than any other color. I don't look thirty, but that's okay. I'm not.

I like it.