After blogging about my red hair and seeing the reactions, I began to realize how much of my life has been focused on my hair. Why is this?
I was born with the genes for what became a thick mop of auburn curls. For whatever reason, my mother thought it necessary to perm up my six year old head until I looked somewhat like a poodle in need of a trim, large balls of curly fuzz framing my little spectacled face. In my teen years, we girls of the ‘60s got into the torture of rollers, those diabolical little demons that made permanent imprints in our adolescent skulls while we slept, or tried to. All in the name of beauty. Some of us even took to wrapping our locks around empty juice cans to get that “helmet” look we all desired, teasing and torturing the hair underneath for optimum height. Thank God that look became obsolete and the days of hippie hair took over. Pictures of me and my hair in my “Mother Earth” days show me barefoot and pregnant, long dense curls coursing uncontrollably down around my shoulders. Why would I ever think about a trim? It went with the macramé and home churned butter. Some might have mistaken me for Loretta Lynn. (Don’t worry if you don’t know who that is.)
The years passed while I aged. My dream of running across a flower strewn field, my long tresses flowing gracefully in the summer breeze, persisted. Too many Disney movies, I suppose. Those tight curls fought me at every turn. A couple of times I got my hair straightened but the natural curl always won out. Finally I decided on “super short” for a sleek, youthful look, hopefully. I’m stuck there now with mixed reactions to this new red. I can’t help being concerned when people startle and say, “Oh, you got your hair colored”, followed by an awkward silence. But it’s my hair, so who cares? Still, I do.
My question in all of this is universal. A few of us seem content with the hair we have been given. Others will spend enough money to buy that desired look. But why do the majority of us squander so much time and energy obsessing about our hair? One of my male friends suggested that it is one thing over which we have a modicum of control. And there aren’t many. It seems that we strive for some impossible dream and never quite get there. Or maybe some of us do arrive at that imagined pinnacle of perfection. I just don’t have many friends who have made it there. For most of us, it is a lifelong quest. However, I believe that we need to put this obsession in perspective. At the end of life, will our prime concern be, “How does my hair look?”