This was originally posted in August
of 2008. By the way, I've changed my hair style three times in 2013. That might
be a record high!
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Ex-husband #2, while he was married to
me, felt that it was his mission in life to continue Mother’s legacy regarding
my hair and its imperfections. In the dozen years we were together, I had more
than that number of different hairstyles and not all were of my choice. It was
never curly or wavy enough nor was it ever long enough to suit his tastes.
One of his favorite choices made me
look like a poodle! It was extremely curly on top and straight on the sides.
Yuck! One time I tried one of those zigzag hair bands. I showed up to pick him
up and in front of his colleagues he said in a harsh tone, “What did you do to
your hair?” Absolutely nothing, thank you. You could tell by his inflection
that I hadn't towed the line as was expected of me.
In my experience with the dynamics of
a relationship, I've noticed that when a relationship is doing badly, one will
withhold what the other so desperately wants. In our case, one of the many
things he wanted me to have (the list was endless) was long hair so I just kept
cutting it. Ear length, chin length, whatever, as soon as it started growing I
had it chopped off. When we separated, I started growing my hair and by the
time our divorce was final it had grown out nicely. Yes, he did comment on it.
By the way, his favorite hairstyles were the ones that required hours of effort
on my part, electric curlers every morning, hair products and a body wave every
three months.
Now for reasons that are unclear to
me, I've longed to be a redhead for years. I had several hair stylists tell me
that I had the skin coloring and eyes to carry it off. Well… for my 43rd
birthday, I had my hair color professionally changed. I loved it! I spent 11
years as a redhead and most of the time, folks thought it was my natural color.
Even my GYN thought so and she should have known!
All good things come to an end. In the
fall of 2007, I started reading articles about how “gray” is the new color for
woman in their fifties. I decided I’d go to my natural hair color, whatever
that was, with a lot of natural gray as highlights. I went to my favorite hair
stylist of the moment. By the way, in the four years that I've lived in
Northampton, I have gone through six hair gurus’ before I found my present one!
I was never happy with the coloring job, or the hair cut or whatever. Because I
never do anything half-way, I decided that I didn't want to go through the
process of growing out the color. She used a number 4 electric razor blade on
my hair. Yep, not quite a cue ball, but close.
Most folks in Northampton and at Smith
College liked it. They marveled at what a nice shaped head I have. That was a
big gamble I took, because really who knows what kind of shaped head one has
until you have no hair to hide under any longer. The ones who didn't like my
new look either said so, or just ignored the fact that there were babies out
there that had more hair than I did.
Ironic, isn't it? Fifty-two years
after my mother shaved my head, I go do it again. The difference this time was
that it was my choice. It wasn't forced onto me by her desire for perfection.
Until next time…
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