Silver Millennial

I was brushing my hair on Tuesday and I noticed a plethora of silver hairs sprouting out like a tiara.

I got so excited.

It felt cheeky.

See, my youthful fatalism had led me to believe I’d never grow old, we’d never survive that long.

Some of y’all know what I mean— growing up with nuclear disasters, the hole in the O-Zone, Y2K Endtimes! It was like, why plan for the future when the world’s gonna end before you graduate High School?

Don’t get me wrong, I still did The Things. Just in case. So the world didn’t end and off I went to Berkeley.

In August of 2001. And we all know what happened the next month.

It was really interesting being 18 at that time. On the cusp, recently out and into a world that then completely changed. It was especially interesting to be represented by the only Congress Rep to vote against the unjust war (Barbara Lee Speaks for me!)

So I never really thought about The Future. It never felt reliable or healthy to expect it. Getting old. Retiring (hahahaha, we’ll never get to retire y’all 😹 but that’s another chapter)

My HAIR is going silver. And I thought, at almost-40 (that comes next week), that it would bother me. We’ve been conditioned to loathe aging, but seeing those sprouts of silver made me feel defiant. And Resilient.

So I’m thinking of my fellow millennials, especially we the silver set. We’ve turned or are turning 40.

Weekly Reader told us in 3rd grade that we’d have biosphere towns on the moon but instead we have a Pacific Garbage Patch. So things aren’t great.

But we’re still here. Which is kinda punk rock of us. (Our Gen X sibs would be so proud, I like to think).

I don’t have a brilliant insight with which to wrap this all up but I’ll say this. It’s hard out there and we’re really hard on ourselves. Maybe we don’t have to be.

Maybe as we metal out with out silver hair, we can be just a little bit gentler with ourselves. We’ve earned that. A bit of kindness just cuz.

Okay— have you eaten recently? Maybe go have a snack.

hydrate and moisturize y’all. You are loved by me and others. Xox