For experience number four, I decided to get a makeover. I’m sure if you are following this blog, you may be getting the impression that the experiences on my list are superficial. I promise there are many other pursuits that will come in the year that don’t involve outer beauty improvement.
When I added a makeover to my list of thirty-three experiences, I didn’t have this fantasy of transforming myself into someone I wasn’t. I’ve spent my entire life as a blonde, except for the last two years.
After the school shooting nearly two years ago, I wanted to disappear, go unnoticed. I didn’t want people staring at me as I wondered what they thought. Did they think I was brave, or that I had done something to be the chosen target? Did they think I could have done something differently to prevent the student from dying? I didn’t want anyone to look at me anymore. I didn’t want to imagine the questions that formed behind those stares. I’d always been aware that my long blonde hair garnered attention, so I chopped it off and dyed it deep brown. The hard, impersonal color attracted me as it matched the numb hardness on my insides. I would not allow the anger, the shock, and the unhappiness to break me, and as each new person praised my strength, I grew harder on the inside and deepened the color of my hair.
Numbness eases little by little as time passes though. Slowly, I dealt with all the emotions that this random event created, so the idea of returning to my natural honey blonde has been toying in my thoughts for some time.
So when I considered what I wanted to accomplish next on this list of experiences, returning to the old me was high on that list. So I did the whole makeover this weekend and left the last of the lingering fears behind.
But when I look in the mirror, it feels as if there is a wig where my hair once was. I don’t quite feel like that blonde I was two years ago. Maybe I never will. Because though I’ve dealt with the emotions of that day, I will never be that same person again. I’m not the same blonde that went to work that morning believing that nothing bad can happen.
So as I stared into the mirror, I started thinking about how important hair color is to a person’s identity. Many would argue that it’s just superficial. But when we describe someone to people, we say, “Oh, you know, that girl with the brown hair and green eyes.” We start with that simple identification.
Not too long ago, I was washing my daughter’s hair as I dyed my own. She studied the deep blackness of my hair as the dye worked, and I scrubbed her golden brown hair that defies a color category. “What color is your real hair, Mommy?”
“Oh, it’s the color of yours, just with more blonde.”
She stared at my dye-soaked hair a moment longer before returning her attention back to her bath pouf.
I wanted to tell her that her hair was beautiful, but the words caught in my throat. My hair is her color, and I’ve dyed it long enough for her to not know that our hair colors are nearly identical. How can she believe her hair color is beautiful, if I don’t show her?
Hair color may only be an extension of our superficial selves, but it is one I’ve always identified with who I was as a person. I may not be that blonde anymore, but when my daughter looks at me and sees her hair color and other parts of herself in me, I want her to know that those parts are special and that she doesn’t need to change anything about herself for her to be beautiful and unique. I can at least be strong enough for her.
Great story.
ReplyDelete