‘Is everything all right?’

“You sure you’re ready?” Brandee asked. I was sure. But I didn’t want to clip my hair short or spend years lightening it, a little at a time, adding highlights and undertones until it matched what was now growing out of my head.

Brandee said she could do it in a day, maybe two depending on how my hair responded.

I would need to leave my roots alone for a few months, not put any color on them, so she could get a good look at my real hair color and match it.

Brandee was good with color. I had met her a couple of years ago at a painting class.

We sat next to other as we learned about tone, pigment and hue. She could see all of it — the green in gray, the blue undertones.

So I left my roots alone. The swath of white roots grew wide quickly over the next few months.

I tried rearranging my part to hide it, but the white strands were all over. Headbands looked silly, and hats were too hot.

It’s a good thing I’m tall. With 4-inch wedges, I could keep most human eyes from looking down on the top of my head.

My friend Nedda came for dinner one night and glanced at my roots, a concerned look on her face. “Is everything all right?” she asked. I told her it was on purpose.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said.

Most of my friends were a little wary of my plan. Regina worried I might suddenly look older.

Honestly, that did give me pause. Already there were days I felt like the Bea Arthur of the newsroom, older than some of the parents of the people I work with. Did I want to look like one of the Golden Girls, too?

But then I thought about when I grappled with whether or not I should cut my long hair once I reached a certain age, and decided there really weren’t any rules I needed to follow.

Brandee set aside an entire day to color my hair, not for the last time because even this change would likely take some touch ups until my own hair color grew out.

I arrived at 10 a.m., and we spent 20 minutes talking about what we were about to do. We looked at pictures. She studied my hair.

I was about 60 percent white at this point, the rest still coming in brown. Medium Brown, she said, laughing.

She took me back to the shampoo bowl, the start of what would turn out to be eight hours, three processes that would turn my hair an alarming shade of orange, and then ash, and then a canary yellow before she worked in a silver color.

We shared an order of penne pasta and a Caesar salad from the restaurant next door. Her shoulders got tired. My butt went numb in the chair. We both held our breath, waiting to see if it would take hold.

The reality was, if I hated it, I could buy a box of col-

I’m getting a lot of compliments on my hair. When I posted pictures on Facebook, Regina wrote, “It looks great, Karina!” Nedda said, “It makes you look 10 years younger!” (Nature gets it right, lightening our hair to soften our look as we age.)

In just the short time I’ve had this new color, I’ve had half a dozen women explain to me how they’d like to stop coloring, just not yet. They worry about the same things as me. I’m not pushing anyone else to do it if they don’t want to. Heck, I could decide to change again.Alot has changed since I wanted to be one of Charlie’s Angels. Particularly me.There’s a reason this felt right as soon as I first saw it in the mirror: I’m done covering up. This is who I am. For now.