It's not grey hair. It's a reclamation.

Yesterday I stopped hiding my grey hair. 

More than that, I actually had a stylist accentuate my grey streaks. 

And if you watched my Instagram stories, you might have heard me talk about how uncomfortable I was as I sat in my car outside the salon. 

I kept thinking, “I’m going to look old and out of touch.” 

“People will think I’m weird”

“I’ll look like I've stopped caring.”

“I’m letting myself go.”

One of the hardest things I’ve had to continually work though in my own journey is worrying about what other people will think and trying to be good enough for them. 

For years that meant trying to fit a vision that someone else had for me of who I should be. 

No matter how hard I tried, I could never be thin enough, pretty enough, young enough, old enough, quiet enough, demure enough, smart enough, organized enough, social enough, cool enough…. you get the picture. 

Trying to be everyone's expected version of me is a full time, completely unachievable job. 

And it showed up EVERYWHERE in my life. 

From relationships I got into because I needed someone to validate my sense of “enoughness”, to holding myself back in my business for years because I believed that what I did was never ever good enough for people to want. 

I feel like I've spent decades of my life trying to dance on the fine line of always meeting other people's expectations.

Always at the expense of my own. 

Always at the expense of what I wanted to say. 

Who I wanted to be. 

How I wanted to look. 

Which is so interesting… because the more I let go of what I think I “SHOULD” be, the happier and more successful in all ways I become.

And the more I do it, the more I uncover ways that I’m still holding back.

Like feeling I had to hide my grey hairs. 

I knew I was going to feel nervous and I worried about regretting it.

What I did not expect was seeing myself in the mirror with my “wise old witch of the woods”, hard earned grey stripes and having the sudden overwhelming sense of liberation 

Of coming home to myself again.

It’s not just hair. It’s a reclamation.

It’s one more bold action towards stepping into who I AM. 

It’s letting go of just one more version of not good enough.

It’s refusing to buy into the idea that a woman should age gracefully, and quietly.

Rejecting the idea that my value lies only in my youth or beauty.

I feel like I’m only just getting started with what I have to offer the world. 

I have shit to say.

And I’m only going to get louder.

In the words of Captain John Paul Jones when he was told to surrender…

I have yet begun to fight.