I'm lucky to have any hair left

My hair turned completely gray within a month of my husbands death. I was still quite young and not ready to be gray so I colored it. And colored it and colored it for years. Now I am at the stage in my life where I think I would not mind having gray hair. I thought it would be like kinda like having blond hair. All four of my sisters have blond/blondish hair, some more blond than others but I have always had darker hair, don't know why. My hair also grows quite fast so I have to color my roots quite often. Like every three or four weeks. I don't like to spend the time to color my roots so often.

A few days ago my roots were almost an inch long so I thought if I lightened the rest of my hair the gray roots growing in wouldn't be so noticeable so I tried a lighter color but I didn't put any on the roots. The results were a little lighter hair and really blond roots. I figured I just needed to buy a more expensive hair color, I always buy the 2.96 colors at Walmart, so I spent nearly 10.00 on a box of hair color specifically made to color dark hair blond, really blond. I followed the directions except for the strand test and left the bleach/color on for a whole hour, I could have left if on for another 30 minutes. Then I had very light blondish orange hair. Jeff kept saying we can just get it cut. I am trying to grow my hair out, I am tired of having short hair. The girls tried to be nice but said they didn't want to go anywhere with me for a while. Jeff kept saying we could get my hair cut, I heard you already and whats with the we stuff anyway, its my hair that looks like I don't know what.

The girls went back to their camper and Jeff went to bed. I sat there thinking about the box's of brown hair color I had stuck in the cabinet. I knew that if you do too much to your hair too often you can ruin it and end up with hair that is like jelly, and you have to get it cut really short and when you throw the jellied hair outside even the birds wont touch it to make a nest. I know these things, been there, that was my story. Still I was thinking that I had only bleached it the one time, the other time I had just tried to color it a lighter color. Most colors I put on my hair turn red because of something in my system, they have always done that so I have to be careful what colors I buy.

When I looked in the cabinet the first box of hair color I found had a reddish tint to it so I put it back and dug deeper. Ah, there was a nice brown hair color. I will just put this on to get rid of the ugly blond, orange stuff that's on my head right now. I colored my hair starting with the roots so they would not be glaring at me any more. Then I didn't feel like there was enough to cover the rest of my hair good and I sure didn't want brown hair with blond orange ends so I grabbed another box of color and mixed it up, this time I did grab one with the red tint, I figured if I was only using it on the ends and the roots and most of the ends were covered with the other brown hair color I would be all right. I waited the required 20 minutes. So far my head wasn't burning and didn't smell funny. As I rinsed the color out my hair still felt like hair, so far so good. Today I have a lovely brownish hair color that I think my family will have no problem being seen with. My hair feels soft and strong and not like jelly.

I guess I'm just not ready to go gray.