Unless you are bald, the hair on your head is with you everywhere. It is a defining feature.
I have changed my hair many times. I’ve had orange, red, black, brown, blonde, platinum…to name a few. For the past maybe eight or so years, I’ve had short hair, usually in a pixie cut.
After a bad experience at a salon, I declared: I’m growing my hair out.
Then another moment came—where I was fed up with things in my life—and I decided: Ok, I am done with blonde, I am dying my hair brown. This was in an attempt to go back to my natural dark blonde roots.
Oddly enough, four days after changing my hair I quit my job. Clearly there was unrest happening in me that I didn’t even know about fully, and it manifested itself… in my hair choice.
I have gone through many different times of change and uncertainty in my life, and sometimes that shows up in my hair.
The strange thing I didn’t think about was how hair can make me feel more or less like me. The more I grew my hair out and the longer it was light brown (with highlights, thanks sun), the less I felt like myself. I hated it. Every day I wanted to cut it and I regretted my decision to attempt to grow it. I had told people I was doing it though so I felt like I had to. Thankfully it’s hair, so I could cut it. But I had convinced myself that growing it out was the answer.
It was so foreign to me that when I saw a brown hair strand on me I jumped, completely forgetting it was from my own head.
Eventually, I did what I really wanted to: I went back to blonde and a pixie cut. Right away, I felt more like me. Despite all the different colours I have tried, I feel most like me when I am blonde.
All this led me to think of what else makes me feel the most like me. For me, that’s reading books. It’s writing everyday. It’s spending time with my husband, friends and family. It’s rearranging the house, just for the sake of change. It’s daily drinking a different kind of tea in a different mug. It’s dreaming. It’s caring about the underdog. It’s feminism. It’s talking to God. It’s dancing in the kitchen. It’s embracing life with boldness.
What makes you feel most like you?
Comments are closed.