Hair Day

In my family of origin, we have naturally big hair. Really, we have got it going on. My sisters have a lovely rich shade of red, my brothers are more strawberry blonde, and mine wanders from red to brown to blonde, lately settling on gray. But color notwithstanding, we've got some wild and crazy hair.

Throughout childhood and school years, I really didn't know what to do with my hair. I fought it. People who cut my hair fought it. We lost. The hair won. I attended high school during the years of "feathered wings". My hair did not feather. It did not have wings. At some point in my adult life, after having children, I read the book Curly Girl and learned to embrace my crazy, wavy hair. I found a stylist who knows what to do with this mess. I went for years happily scrunching my hair and enjoying the unstyle.

Sometime in this past year, though, I've changed. I don't know why, exactly, but I didn't want rumply hair anymore. I think I just wanted something, something, to be controllable. I wanted to be able to wake up to a new day, and be able to count on something to be the same as it was yesterday. So I took a picture of Jenifer Anniston's long, angled, bob look to the girl who cuts my hair. Kelly Marie gamely said, "We can do that," and cut the heck out of my hair. She is amazing and my unruly hair is tamed.

So tame, that when I saw a bunch of friends from high school on Saturday, after we had said "hi good to see you who are you again how are you," one of my friends immediately asked, "How did you get your hair so straight?" Pretty funny! Pretty noteworthy. Pretty telling.

I don't know how long this hair stage will last, but for now I've got one thing in my life straightened out and under control. But just the one thing.

Postscript: Shonda! You called me out.

Before (two years ago in CO with the fam):


After (this past weekend in Surfside with my high school peeps):