Category: hair color

Weird Haired Old Lady

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 19 Comments

Old people do strange things.

My mind tells me I’m nowhere near old, yet the calendar and my birth certificate tell me otherwise. How this can be I don’t know. There is no way I graduated from high school 55 years ago. That’s utter bull. No way. Uh huh.

A 40-year-old son? What happened to his soccer games and baseball games? Those are now being replaced by his OWN kids’ schedules.

No way. Uh huh.

Am I in denial? Definitely. 

How does one deal with this major mental roadblock in your life?

You change your hair color.

All my life I was an auburn tartie. Loved that deep reddish brown look. Then my hair started turning gray on the sides, so I figured what the heck. Let it go.

So this salt and pepper look hung around my face for a number of years. Deep down inside I wished I had long, thick hair, or curly hair or blonde hair  — anything but this thin, flat mop that frames my face.

Retirement is indeed a golden time, but it’s also a stress of its own making. No going back. No changing bad decisions or bad hair choices. It’s all or nothing these days. There’s not a lot of time anymore to mull and dwell and dawdle. You’re moving forward at the speed of light these days, so you need to stop and smell the roses as you head down the road.

And I got to wondering — if not now, when?

So I went to the salon today and asked for purple and blue highlights be put in my hair. Not subtle, barely-there colors. These are bursts of lavender and cobalt and darker purples dancing all through this gray mop.

And it looks great.

People will definitely turn an eye when I walk by. I will create my own center of attention that I’m not sure I want. 

But I did something out of the box. Something unusual and attitude adjusting and scary and life defining. I’ve never been a beauty, and the gray hair was draining any confidence I had stuffed into the nooks and crannies of my life.

There are not many opportunities to change your emotional direction as you get older. People may say let it go and I’m so over all of this and I’m perfectly happy with who and what I am. 

But often there’s a chink in that armor. Deep down inside we may not always be as confident as we think we are. As we want to be.

So why not take a step out of that rut and try something new? Different? At this point in life, what have you got to lose?

If not now, when?

 

 

Good Hair Day

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

CAM01687Yesterday my husband went shopping at Walmart (you know…the wonder world full of wonder things). He called me about noon, as said since he was there buying oil for the car he’d pick up my hair color, too.

This is the first time he’s ever offered to purchase something as personal as hair color. First time in 35+ years. ANd there was something about the combination of oil and hair color that gave me a wee bit o’ the shivers.

Most men (and I’m not picking on you guys) do a decent job of buying toiletries for your lady. I know you wince slightly when you yave to buy those monthly things, but shampoo, deodorant, no problem. It’s slightly harder when it comes to shower gel and toothpaste. Forget things like nail polish and lipstick — I mean, how could he tell the difference between Relish the Moment and Pink Peony? And, of course, there is lip stick, lip gel, lip color, lip gloss — how would he know what to buy if even I don’t have a clue?

Most time hair color falls in that category, too. Most women use the same color every time. Simple Simon. Not me. My hair was really bleached out multi blonde/brown from Disneyworld, so I needed go to brown town. But I often vary my choices between a few. Which colors? I don’t remember. Which manufacturer? I don’t remember. I usually pick the color that never quites comes out the way the box says.

But back to hubby’s gesture. I was going to pick out my own box, but it would have involved making my own trip and possibly buying something “not needed” and taking my time and making my hubby late for work, so I figured, what the heck. So I gave him the thumbs up.

“What color?”

“Brown.”  That was safe.

“Light brown? Dark brown?”

Getting dicier.

“Medium brown. Dark makes me look gothic, and lighter browns still turn out auburn.”

So last night I sat all by myself looking at the box.  Medium chestnut brown.

I’ve never been a chestnut.

But I trust my husband’s intentions (especially now that I think he’s finally over the blonde-me and the grow-your-hair-as-long-as-Cher me), so I went for it.

Maybe I should let him make a few more selections for me as the years go by. After all, one hit in 35 years can be the start of something special.

What do you think?