Let's talk about: hair!

I had a traumatic experience this week, the kind I thought I was always somewhat above of having.  I went to get my hair dyed and cut at a professional salon and came out with unexpected results.  I then proceeded to cry for several hours while demanding reassurance from all my gay friends that they would still love me.

An important consideration for this story is that I am not what you would call a girly girl: I can rarely muster up enough energy to put on makeup more than once or twice a week, my nail polish stays on for months until it chips off, and I can and have go years between haircuts.  So the post-traumatic stress I experienced as a result of this took me by surprise.

I wear my hair long, black, and usually straight.  I’ve had long hair for years, ever since I was old enough to take care of my own hair, presumably an act of rebellion from the early childhood years where my mom thought it was the roaring 20’s and decided to make me rock the blunt-bangs bob.  I receive a lot of compliments on my hair and it’s my favourite feature and the physical attribute I am most confident about. I guess the pink and purple highlights in my hair subconsciously became a huge part of my identity, because this time I opted for blue instead and was left traumatized.

Something that seemed logical afterwards but I completely forgot in the joy of the hair dyeing moment was that blue probably wouldn't show up very well against black.   As she finished drying my hair and kept pointing out the blue and how nice it looked, I almost started crying because I couldn’t see it.  When I got home, I stood staring at my hair in my mirror for hours, checking it from different angles and under different lighting fixtures, trying to figure out how to see the blue more vividly.  I felt like someone had just cut off my hand or my nose without those bold strands of pink.  I felt boring.  I felt generic.  I worried that nobody was going to realize how much of a unique butterfly I was if my hair didn’t say it for me.   I had a legitimate identity crises caused by my hair.

It’s been a few days now, and I’ve come to terms with it.  The blue dye is temporary, and in a few months, it will be time for a new colour and I can be as special a snowflake as I want to be.   In the meantime, I’m focusing on reshaping that demented aspect of my personality where my dependence on hair-related compliments once was and replacing it with something productive and positive.  Like a drinking problem.