It always comes down to my hair!

I just got to do something I feel like I haven’t done in a while. I took a long shower. Now I have been taking showers so don’t be alarmed, but I am always hurrying to get to school or church or to do chores or to go out. Today I took a really LONG shower with no hurrying involved. I do my best thinking in the shower. Today I started thinking about my upcoming birthday. My husband and I both have birthdays coming up and we are hoping to slip out of town for a couple of days on his birthday. I was thinking about that and then my mind wandered. Since I turned 40 I have tried each year to do at least one big thing I have never done before. That first year I rode in a helicopter for the first time. Since then I have done some big things and sometimes several little things.

This past year it has been several little things. I sang on the Virginia Sanford stage for the first time. I was cast in a show in that building back when I was a child and it was called The Little Theatre, but my dad forbid me to do it because the director was notorious for having rehearsal go very late into the night. So doing that this spring was sort of a fulfillment of sorts for me. I also did two shows at once, never did that before, and played multiple characters in one show. I also did a show in a British dialect and didn’t feel silly doing it! So I have done some cool things this past year. I also saw my son graduate and get his first grown up job and gorgeous, grown up apartment. His accomplishments, not mine I know, but as a mom you kind of feel like it is a tiny bit yours.

I rarely plan what my “unique thing” will be, but this year I have some things coming up. I will be doing my BFA project and I should graduate from college. I think those are pretty big things to do for the first time at my age!

I am also thinking about coloring my hair. I have done that before. As a teenager I did it all of the time. But then I stopped. When I was in my mid twenties I decided to jazz things up a bit and color my hair a little redder than my natural color. I had cut it and wanted to do something to shake up my life. Back then I thought a new cut or color, a new dress or lip gloss would change my life. I was sort of stagnant at the time. I had a job I was kind of bored with, didn’t have a boyfriend and was living with my parents still. So I decided to dye my hair. It was Sunday afternoon. I ran to the drugstore and bought a pretty auburn color for my hair. I put the cream on, waited, washed it out and dried my hair. To my horror it was purple. Not red with violet undertones, not brown with a maroon glow- PURPLE! I was in shock! I stared in disbelief and then I cried. I had to go to work the next morning at a conservative bank! I had purple hair!

I had to do something fast. Back then not all drug stores were even open on Sunday and most that were closed early. I decided all I could do was dye it black and cover up the purple. I ran to the store and got black dye and came home to try again. I did not want black hair, but for now it was all I could think to do. I put the goo on my hair again, waited the 20 minutes and washed it out. I dried it again and although it was darker and not as purple, it still was an odd shade.

The next morning I went into work and everyone looked at me funny but said nothing. That is until my coworker’s husband came by and a guy who worked across the street came in to make a deposit. They were friends of mine and friends with each other.They both laughed and made jokes about my hair. About that time a lady who owned a dress shop up the street came in. She was very old and very proper so the guys kind of stopped ribbing me for a minute. I reached to take her money and she looked at me and said, “Your hair is stunning, simply stunning!!” And the two guys busted out laughing. The guy from across the street who was there to make a deposit was none other than Tim Lunceford. I wasn’t even dating him at the time. Within a few weeks I was dating him and another guy whose family had a flower shop nearby. I quickly knew Tim was the one, but obviously my crazy hair color was a way to shake things up! It got me two boyfriends!

Another customer who came in later that day told me that when you dye your hair you open the follicles that your hair grows out of. He told me I was very lucky that doing that twice, back to back like that had not caused my hair to fall out. I did have a very peeling scalp for a week or so. I decided at that point I would never color my hair again.

Several years ago a friend of mine had a new grandbaby. She showed me a picture of the child and I thought the baby looked cute, but who was that old lady holding her? I realized it was me! I recognized the outfit. I had my head down looking at the child so you could not see my face, but the gray hair from the back was something I didn’t normally see and it freaked me out. She told me I could have the picture and although I thanked her, I really did not want to look at it again. Soon after that I decided I could not handle dying my hair, but I did let my stylist foil some brown streaks in it to get rid of some of the gray and brighten up my look a bit. I know now that hair color and new haircuts don’t change your whole life, but sometimes they do perk you up.

Well, now I have a very short, perky haircut and I can no longer have streaks foiled in. It won’t work on such short hair. I have cut it shorter and shorter every five weeks and little by little the color I did have on it has been cut away. I have been noticing how prominent the gray is now and even my son told me it was looking rough last Sunday after lunch. It just isn’t a pretty gray. I like to look natural but… Oh, who am I kidding- I just want to look good!

So I talked to my hairdresser and to Tim who professes to like the gray hair but I am not so sure. I think I look like my mother and that is not good! I have thought about school, I can’t be cast as a young person, I’m not one. But do I mess up my chances to play the grandma if I lose the gray hair? Well, they weren’t casting me as the grandma anyway!

So what do you think? I am willing to listen to opinions. I won’t take them since it is my head and I will be the one going to the salon to get it done every few weeks, but you are free to tell me what you think now. I do NOT want to hear it afterwards, unless it is to tell me I look 20 years younger and you love it! The good thing is that within a few months it can be gone because of having such short hair. The bad thing is new headshots. The good thing is, it will definitely be a change and I love changes, the bad thing is, it is a risk. Hey wait, I like those, too!

Nora Ephron once said on Oprah that hair dye was the best thing ever invented for womankind. She was so funny and although I laughed, I hardly agreed. But her words have come back to me this week. Maybe it is not the greatest invention for women, but it is a very painless way to spruce up and feel a little younger. Is that so wrong? What to do- what to do?!