“Are you having a midlife crisis?”
Two male coworkers asked me this at work this week when I came back after vacation with radically different hair.
“No,” I said. “It’s a mid-life acceptance.”
I remember Larry the hairdresser in his little shop by the hospital where my mom worked when I was a teen. He picked up a strand of my naturally blonde hair one day and said, “People pay a lot of money to have hair this color.”
My sister and I were fascinated by his comment.
“Why?” we asked our mother afterward in the car.”Why would people pay to have our hair? Why don’t they like their own?”
“Because it’s a nice color,” she said or something like that. It’s been a long time.
I never realized how much that lighter than wheat color had become a part of my identity until it started to slide into the dishwater realm. Not brunette. But dishwater. This happened after I turned 25 and it shocked the bejeezus out of me. I started out at a stylist with just a few highlights to brighten it back up, trying to ignore how I had sworn as a younger woman that I’d never be a bleach blonde.
And then, as time went on, I began to understand what Larry was talking about. I, too, was paying a lot of money to get back to what I looked like at 14.
Recently I looked my roots in the mirror and told myself to give it up. Give up the money spending and give up the identity I had as a child. The hairdresser matched my hair to a light brown shade and then colored those peroxide locks to help me make the transition.
People have been shocked. They don’t know me. I’m a little sad to think that’s because I have been fooling them for the last 10 years at least, and it feels good to come clean. There is something powerful in getting older and changing beyond what I could have imagined in Larry’s hair salon.
And the biggest irony? People are also saying I look younger. Go figure.
The once upon a time natural color. I’m not strong enough to post those teenage pics.
The before picture with those pesky tattle tale roots.
Ack. I couldn’t help but think of Hermione in the movie version of THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. “Is that really what my hair looks like from the back???”
Revised color from the back.
Note: I know. I said I would not write again until February 1st but I had this story to tell. I’m still working on reshaping the blog but it looks like I’ll be posting at the same time from here on out. I guess I am not able to stay quiet for a whole month.
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I was a towhead who went dishwater in my 20’s. I bleached until my 40’s, then went almost brown (by chemicals), then changed to ash. Finally, in my early 70’s I began to wonder what I’d look like gray. I had heard blonds don’t gray very nicely. But, I was pleased with the gray, only I don’t call it that, it’s platinum, just like the rest of me!
As for your new hair style, I love it. You do, indeed, look younger.
Martha
Thanks, Martha. I like your platinum — both your hair and all of the rest of you. I wish you luck tomorrow in your class! (I did remember right didn’t I?) I still wish I could go.