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The Hair Theory

When I first came to Perth, I did not notice much grey in my hair. Maybe a strand here or there, but nothing to worry about. A year later, things changed. My hair started turning grey in a way I could not ignore. Some friends told me it was stress. Moving to a new country, starting over, learning to build a life from the ground up. Stress can show up in strange ways, they said. I nodded, but I also had my own theory.

Back home, as children we were told that salt makes your hair turn white faster. If salt had that kind of power, then why not salty water? I convinced myself that the Perth water was the reason my hair was changing. It made sense to me. I am yet to discover any scientific experiment, if any. But for now, that's a topic for another blog post. 

And then I noticed something else. The speed at which our hair fall. All of a sudden grey hair do not bother us anymore. The amount of hair I lost every week was shocking. Friends and acquaintances shared the same story. Almost everyone had complaints about hair turning grey and falling out too quickly. It felt like a shared side effect of living here.

Over time, I added another theory to this puzzle. Age. No matter where you live, your years keep adding up. With years comes change, and greying hair is one of the most natural signs of it. Once I admitted this to myself, I started accepting it.

Even then, I find myself holding on to the water theory. Maybe because it feels easier to blame the salty water than the ticking years. Stress also makes sense to me now. Living far from home, managing responsibilities, and carrying unspoken worries do leave marks. If people say stress causes grey hair, I do not dismiss it anymore.

What I know for sure is that change is happening. My hair is different today than when I arrived. I used to worry, but now I treat it as part of my story here. Each strand is proof of time spent in this place, with its struggles and small victories.

If you ask me today why my hair turned grey, I will give you three answers. The water. The stress. And the years. Which one is true? Maybe all of them. Maybe none. But I am learning to live with it. And in a strange way, I find comfort in knowing I share this with so many others who make where they now live their new home.

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