Goodbye Dallas Hello World: Old...

100 Before 100

1. Learn to knit

2. Write a cookbook

3. Learn how to clap to the beat of music on my own (No, seriously. This is an issue)

4. Start a by-mail book swap with my amazingly smart high school friends

5. Learn how to use photoshop

6. Get a puppy and train him so well that I can go for a run and she/he will follow behind me with no instruction

7. Go to every continent

8. Be fluent in French

9. Watch all of Hitchcock's classic movies

10. Celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary

11. Throw a party that people will be talking about for years as one of the best events they've ever been to.

12. Write in a journal daily for a year

13. Learn to scuba dive (I received scuba lessons as a Christmas present! I'm one step closer to knocking this off my list!)

14. Ride an elephant

15. Read War and Peace

16. Have a white christmas

17. Wear a tutu in all seriousness in public

18. Build my dream kitchen (subway tile, giant stove, sofas for hanging out....)

19. Work on conquering my fear/phobia of needles to the point where I can get a shot without being slightly hysterical

20. Learn how to make delicious Indian food (there have been some very failed attempts in the past)

21. Live in a city that is no more than an hour drive from the mountains

22. Create a 5-year plan that is feasible, interesting, and exciting.

23. Go to the World's Longest Yard Sale in Tennessee.

24. Win the weekly cartoon-captioning contest in the New Yorker.

25. Go 12 months without losing a cell phone.

26. Donate 10+ inches of hair to Locks of Love

27. See the Taj Majal

28. Collect and record stories about my family from my grandparents

29. Break the habit of picking at the skin around my nails. Youch! It hurts!

30. Bungy jump from the world's tallest bungy jump from Bloukrans bridge in South Africa.

31. Have a “signature dish”—something that everyone will ask me to bring to a potluck.
32. Go ice fishing.
33. Get all of my amazing girlfriends across the nation together for an unforgettable weekend.
34. Spend a month in the woods with nothing but the pack on my back and whatever I can carry in it.
35. Use the phrase “the last time I was in Thailand” in a completely legitimate way.
36. Own my own company.
37. Learn how to clean and cook and entire fish.
38. Play with a baby elephant

39. Run a 7-minute mile.
40. Compete in a hot air balloon race.

41. Live in a foreigncountry
42. Play tennis at a 4.0 level (right now I'm a measly 2.75)
43. Learn the names of the constellations
44. Beat my Mom at Scrabble (never. going. to happen.)
45. Start a compost pile
46. Buy a gorgeous piece of stained glass
47. Learn how to be a good haggler
48. Wear a two-piece with ease again
49. Be an extra in a movie
50. Learn how to play chess

About 6 months ago I was waiting in the car for Chris and was randomly looking at the follicles of the stray hairs that had shed on my jacket (why? I have no idea. I'm a girl. We do strange things like look at the roots of our hair. mmkay?) And I got a vicious shock-- a gray root! My first gray hair! However, I was successfully able to dive straight into denial and tell myself that because it wasn't actually growing out of my head it didn't count.

But now, tragedy has struck, I have found grays growing out my head. Yes, my actual head. sob. Chris and I were out to dinner when I spotted them in the bathroom mirror.

I'm not sure how I feel about them. The drama queen in me says,

"gahhhhhh! I'm too young for gray hairs. Woe is me, I am only 25!"

While the much more mature rational side says,

"meh. no biggie. Because of the way I part my hair the grays don't show."

I'm feeling very old. I never thought the day would come when I had actual gray hairs (oh look, denial again).

I'm not planning on dying it right now for a variety of reasons (mainly because I'm cheap and I wear a stupid hat to school everyday.)

But, every time my mind wanders back to my new grays (which happens often-- I'm vain like that) I have a conflicting battle of two songs-- I Am Beautiful and The Old Grey Mare.

What do you do about grey hairs? Or am I the only one sprouting the vile traitorous follicles? Lord help us when I start to get wrinkles!

And Christina Aguilera's "I Am Beautiful"

3 comments- my fav!:

Kate said...: January 24, 2011 at 2:41 PM; No one tells you that you'll get them in your 20's. They should. It's a cruel shock, for sure. I'd prefer to dye mine, but the husband says he actually finds them attractive on me. I thought he was being nice. He was completely serious. Not sure what to think about that.
S@sha said...: January 24, 2011 at 4:52 PM; Well, I'm 36, which to you probably sounds old but in the greater scheme of things is still pretty young. I come from a long line of women who go grey really early on both sides of my family, so I've been dyeing my hair for years now. I'm definitely a fan of hair dye. Grey hair can be covered up, when you start to get those wrinkles you pretty much are stuck with them. I say fight what you can!
Meri said...: January 25, 2011 at 10:38 AM; I wouldn't worry about it until you get more than a few! It might just be a pigment-less hair too.
And if you go totally gray by 30, you'd be amongst the fashionably elite (Lady Gaga??) Plus, all of those old hollywood starlets had platinum-grayish hair, you could rock that :)

I'm always happy to meet a fellow Meredith! Thanks for stopping by meri-goes-round!
Meri
merigoesround.blogspot.com