A spot of stolen Sunday wisdom

Writing today’s post hurts. I don’t want to admit what’s happened to me. It seems so silly because this occurs to most of us eventually.

Ok, here it is (deep breath): I found my first grey hair. The horror.

Now, in these recessionary times you’re probably saying what’s the big deal about one grey hair..? Aren’t I lucky I have hair at all?

But when you’re a child, dreaming about all the ‘firsts’ in your future (first kiss, first love, first drink, first time you shave your legs), your first grey hair is not something you lie awake imagining. When the day came, there was just me, the mirror, and a bastardly grey strand protruding mockingly from my scalp.

Besides, I simply cannot afford the cost of root maintenance. 

What did I do about that hair? No, I did not pull the coarse intruder out from the roots or dye it. The hairdresser told me it was unwise to pluck it out, although google research has since revealed that it is a myth that if you pluck out grey hair then two will grow back in its place. They don’t sprout to seek revenge for the execution of their follicular comrades. 

This all got me thinking. It used to be common thought that grey hair was associated with wisdom. Perhaps this is it; perhaps now that I am old and grey I am thus wise, sage and mellow. Perhaps now I understand just what matters in life.

Of course this is nonsense.

One of my favourite writers is Nora Ephron. Funny, unable to write a boring sentence, and wise; I thought that to mark the occasion of my first grey hair it would be ‘wise’ to steal some of her actual wisdom, and share it with you all.

From Nora Ephron’s essay, What I wish I’d known.

'People have only one way to be.

Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.

You never know.

The plane is not going to crash.

Anything you think is wrong with your body at thirty-five you will be nostalgic for at the age of forty-five.

Write everything down.

Take more pictures.

You can order more than one dessert.

If the shoe doesn’t fit in the store, it’s never going to fit.

Whenever someone says the words ‘Our friendship is more important than this,’ watch out, because it almost never is.

Overtip.

If only one third of your clothes are mistakes, you’re ahead of the game.

There are no secrets.'

Thanks Nora. Unfortunately she doesn't have any insight into the grey matter. So I shall be wise and decide that at 27 it’s way too early for acceptance. Instead, I shall just move my fringe over a little on the other side and pretend the grey hair – that little bugger! – isn’t there.