I feel compassion for your situation.  Know what I think? Go for it again; just do it. I am 55 and for me at this age a year goes by very fast.  Why not join a gym and while you are going back to that glittery gorgeous color and you can tone up. By the time the blonde color and the highlights grow out you will feel better about your body as well as your hair? You may not have  "a feeling old and fat day" again. 

I myself did something on a whim lately. I had let all my dye grow out and even though I had only a very small proportion of white I felt good. I even went shorter than I should truly go with my face shape to get it all cut off. It did not take long to arrive at my ideal length. I had truly arrived (see photos). Then one humid, hot day last week I impulsively had someone cut it all off. I was miserably hot but also feeling unhappy about myself (old and fat). I did not go to my beloved regular hairdresser Danny because I knew he would be against it and for good reason. It is very short. I look awful. ( I will post the awful picture)

The good thing is that it is a lot cooler without much hair (1 1/2 inches) and more whites show, too. The negative thing is now I am at least a year away from growing it back. The way I am going to deal with it is to go to the gym as soon as my 8 year old is back in school and do some serious work on my body. 

Best to you... perhaps we will arrive back to where we were at the same time,

Debbie in CT

--- On Wed, 8/5/09, gailmclendon <gailmclendon@...> wrote:

From: gailmclendon <gailmclendon@...>
Subject: [deciding_to_go_gray] What was I thinking?
To: deciding_to_go_gray@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 4:01 PM

 

Hi Ladies,

My name is Gail and I'm 52yo. I let my hair "go natural" (no color for 12 months)which truly was a pretty silver-gray, up to 1 week ago when I had a melt-downand hit the bottle again :-(

It was about 9pm and I was feeling old and fat and looking at before and after pictures when I decided on a whim that coloring my hair would make me look and feel better. As soon as I started squirting the color on I felt regret but keep going. I colored it dark blonde which made me look like a middle aged lady who obviously colors her hair. So 2 days later I had my daughter highlight it which lightened it up quite a bit. I had told myself from the beginning of going natural I'd give it a year and if I didn't like it, I'd simply start coloring again.

Today I was looking at pictures from a wedding I was at 2 weeks ago and my silver hair was absolutely gorgeous! It looked like icicles from a Christmas tree the way 1/2 of it glittered (mostly around my face). The back of my head was more mousy-gray but still nice. I've been offered senior discounts since going natural and I guess I got a bit too vain. I realized that with make-up and the right colors that silver still may age me some but it also made me look confident of who I had become. As someone stated earlier, I too had gotten compliments from both men and women. Now I'm like the majority of ladies out there who would do anything to try to keep looking young.

All this to say I'm seriously thinking about doing it again. It took less than 12 months keeping my hair short but now its grown out to an angle cut at the chin.

Oh, if I could only go back to a week ago!