Hair Today...Gone Tomorrow (I couldn't resist, sorry.)

I'm letting my hair grow.

Throughout high school I had long hair that I took great pains with. I learned to sleep in plastic rollers the size of soup cans. Then I'd spend an hour or so with a "curling" iron...making sure every strand was smooth and straight. You do see the irony? Oh, and I have naturally curly hair. I dyed it. Poured lemon juice and peroxide on it. I washed it every day, lathering twice, and used "creme rinse" to keep the fizz down. I brushed it when it was wet, combed it when it was dry, and generally abused it into submission.

We were married a few years, and I was tired of being held hostage by my artificially straight hair. I decided I needed a perm. I'm really not sure how I arrived at that conclusion. Maybe it was a form of "Stockholm syndrome". You remember big hair? It was going to prove to be just as time consuming as my faux straight style, and I had to buy a pick...but, I needed a change. It would be "different". I would be different, the world would dawn a brighter place, the lion would lie down with the lamb, and I'd be tall and thin...

So I got the perm. I really liked it. Tall One took one look at me and I could tell he DIDN'T. I was crushed. Cried. And, called EVERY female friend, acquaintance and cousin-of-their-boyfriend's-sister-who's-a-beautician for EVERY perm relaxing home remedy known to human kind. I sort of wish I had collected them all in a spiral bond notebook. It would be "fun" to look back at our primitive hair care knowledge or, I could bury it in the yard and give future archeologists a real thrill. I ended up slathering my head in mayonnaise, wrapping that with plastic wrap and sitting under the hood of a portable hair dryer for a couple of days. The perm remained intact, and, I learned a valuable lesson that had nothing to do with sandwich spread. Tall One does not react well to change. I just can't take it personally.

In the early eighties, I decided I needed another drastic change and cut my hair short. It turned out to be a good look. Periodically, over the next two decades I would let it grow, then cut it short again, each time thinking that would be the last time I'd ever have long hair. I was really pushing the "Nana-maxim" - "Thou shalt not have long hair after the age of 25"! Apparently, it's the eleventh commandment. Her "homosexual" (say it without making a sound, just by the exaggerated movement of your mouth, like you're trying to communicate via lip reading to a less than brilliant chimpanzee) hairdresser who lived in the apartment upstairs told her that - 55 YEARS AGO! Seriously, whenever I hear the story, I picture gay Moses (fuchsia robe, eye liner, and a dinner ring) handing down the tablets!

Sometime around our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, I had it cut really, really short. I love that look. Sophisticated woman with an almost shaved do. Except that I don't wear makeup or ear rings, and both of those are crucial to pulling it off. I lost all my femininity. I looked like a cross between a chemo patient and bulldyke (can I say that without offense, or should I just mouth it?). But, it grew out.

Shortly after the tragedy I've memorialized in "A Hair Raising Story of Passion and Loss", I lost interest in my hair. Nothing was working, I didn't hate my hair. I have good hair, it's forgiving and easy going...it was me, not hair. Up until this last cut, my hair style was based entirely on apathy. Now, I'm actively "growing my hair".

Today, my only requisite in a hair style, is that I don't have to mess with it. I like to get up in the morning, stick my head under the spigot, finger comb and go. My hair cooperates with this completely...it still wakes up screaming from the nightmares of it's long ago "Saw"-like captivity. I've found an up-do that works! So I have a bit of diversity. The first time I tried it, Tall One had that look that caused all the problems with my perm. I ignored it. I love the elegant grey-haired-older-woman-in-a-stunning-pashima look. Or, the casual-out-doorsy-older-woman with her braid. God, I hope I don't end up looking like the wicked witch of the west!

Tall One is still petitioning for a short hair cut...I'm not giving in because I imagine his disappointment in finding that by getting my hair cut short...I won't be twenty years younger and twenty pounds thinner.