Is Anyone Else Excited To Go Gray?

As a precocious child who shot through a growth spurt before just about everyone else I knew, all I can remember wanting was to grow up already. It looked so fun! Stilettos and spinny chairs. Schedules and sports cars. I counted down the years until my 13th birthday, snuck into my mother’s bathroom to shave my hairless legs, stole her makeup, and reveled in starting puberty early. The Period Book? I read it with unadulterated religious fervor, as if pure passion for the subject could put me in a developmental fast lane.

Childhood passed slowly until suddenly, it was gone. While I don't wish to relive my awkward years, I miss the giddy excitement of looking forward to the greener pastures of adulthood, without really knowing what I was in for. Taxes, insurance, financial planning...though rewarding in a "I'm a functioning member of society" kind of way, there’s nothing fun about them. Even spinny chairs get old quick.

Yet there are still discoveries to be made, even in my jaded early twenties. In this case, while dry shampooing my hair. As I parted and sprayed, I found something: one single, shimmering strand of gorgeous gray hair. And you know what? I couldn't have been happier.

Yes, I am excited to go gray. Not necessarily immediately, but sooner rather than later wouldn't bother me. Look at Karen Walker X Advanced Style, or The Row Pre-Fall 2014. Clearly, there’s some societal (or at least fashion world) consensus that going gray isn’t just for geriatrics.

So tell me, am I alone in my excitement here? Or is everyone going to say I’m just being "precocious" again.

—Alexis Cheung

Photos via Vogue, Vogue Taiwan, Andrew O'Toole, Vogue Italia, Grey Magazine, The New Yorker, Ruo Bing Li, and Terry Richardson.