I am an accepting person by nature, I feel I lived enough and had enough experience and perspective to let the things I cannot change just be, things like other people’s beliefs, bureaucratic processes, the weather, aging, and situations out of our control – I simply don’t see the point of wasting emotional time and energy on things that cannot be changed.

I do have some pretty big feelings about things that can be changed, however. Letting your dog bark continually at the neighbors and whether I am ready to let my hair go gray are the things on my mind at present. I live next door to a younger couple, who have two young children and two dogs, and our fence is one of those chicken wire ones that you can clearly see each other in your back yards, they have a chocolate lab, called Coco, she’s probably a nice dog. But whenever she is outside, she barks. Stands at the fence line and barks and barks and barks. When they are outside with her, she barks and when she is outside by herself, she barks. All.the.time. Barking, barking, barking. It’s annoying and obnoxious and has been going on for two years. Now they have a boxer puppy called Harley (or Haaar-leeee) as the wife likes to sing at her, and Coco is teaching her to bark as well. At us, outside, in our own back yard.

I don’t think it’s within their realm of understanding that they are the alphas of the pack, and they can teach their dogs to stop barking at the neighbors any time they want. I’m always telling Coco to shut up, but I cannot think of a way to ask them to teach their dogs to not bark when they are outside. I have taught our dog not to bark when he is outside and the neighbors on the other side of our house have also taught their dogs to not bark when they are outside. (Which was an admirable feat in itself as they have a whole pack of small yappy dogs). Sure, they still do bark sometimes, especially when they first run out, but it’s only a few “Hey, I’m here! What’s going on!” barks. And then they stop. Not Coco, she’s always freaking barking. I have fantasies of getting a high-powered super soaker and spraying her from our upstairs windows to make her stop.

The husband used to be out in the yard a lot and we used to chat over the fence, but I guess his job has changed or something because now it’s the wife and her Mom and the two little boys out there a lot with the dogs, and it’s impossible to talk over their barking, – not that she’s ever especially interested in talking to me anyway, and the few times I have knocked on their door for something, it takes them so long to control Coco, by the time they actually open the door, the dog is still barking and again it makes it impossible to have any sort of a conversation. And I don’t know what to say without sounding like an asshat.

So, I gradually accepted that if I’m not willing to have a conversation with them about it, I need to find a way to suck it up and not let it bother me. But come on – barking dogs are just rude, especially when they bark at you in your own backyard.

But I digress, I just mentioned the barking dog, because she is out there right now at 7 am on a Sunday morning, barking.

What is really on my mind now is that I’m not ready to let my hair go gray

As I am writing, my hair desperately needs help. I have just spent at least 10 minutes staring at the grayness of my roots because I have not dyed them for almost a month. I’ve been using root cover spray, which looks good, and is quick and easy, BUT (because there always is one) seeing as you just basically spray painting the roots of your hair, you can’t touch your hair or scalp without having some transfer on your fingers and nails. And it stains your nails. Yikes.

So, I’m at the awesome in-between stage right now, still summoning the energy and time to dye my hair (because, yes, I dye my own hair) and I don’t want to wash it and wait for a day or so sans product to let my scalp settle down before the dying part. Because I need product in my curly, frizzy hair.

I am really getting to see exactly how much salt is in the mix, and it’s a lot! I fully understand the convenience of just paying someone to do it for me. But I hate paying for things I can do myself. I mean geez, I could use that $100+ for so many other things.

But my hair is curly, so I can get away with it.

I keep seeing pictures of women with gorgeous gray hair and even though I know it’s all choreographed, they look radiant. So maybe my doubt is in the process?  How do you “go gray” with class?

My gut feeling is though, I am still not ready.

But are we ever?

As women are we ever ready for the next phase of our body’s passage through time?

Looking back, even though I wanted my period to arrive (all my friends got theirs first) once it arrived, I was not ready for the commitment of knowing that every month (more or less) for the rest of my life (or so I thought at the time) I would have my period. Whoa.

And if I didn’t want to get pregnant every time I had sex I had to take a pill every single day until I found another birth control option that would work for me in my marriage. Wasn’t ready for that either.

When I got pregnant, although I was excited and wanted to be a mother, I was also terrified, my body was changing…. I wasn’t ready for that.

Giving birth, breastfeeding, being continually sleep-deprived, taking responsibility for a whole other human, I wasn’t ready for those things either.

But I know, like all of those things, even though I don’t feel ready, I will figure it out as I go along because it is part of the terrifying, scary, beautiful, brilliant part of the journey of being a woman.

So, even though I am not ready to go gray this week. I’m positive that when the time comes, it will all be just fine because I am a strong and courageous woman. And I’ve mostly got this.

Mostly.