It is a gift, really. For those of us with a natural hair color that, if it were manufactured, bottled, and sold would have the name "Common Field Mouse" printed on the box, the magic of hair chemicals opens up a whole spectrum of color options. I've tried them all.
The truth is, I'm something of an addict.
Oh sure, a few years ago, when I was at the height of my hair color abuse, I would have told you I could quit anytime. But I really couldn't. I was in bondage to the thrill of constantly altering my appearance.
As much as the decision to leave a career and stay home with my children was a privilege and as much as I loved being with them and teaching them, my restless spirit was often pushing against convention, itching for change, looking for adventure. Changing my hair color would give me a temporary rush, appease my restlessness, and calm my spirit. Until the next time. But one day, several years ago, things got very out of hand.
It all started when I accidentally turned my hair black.
It wasn't supposed to come out black. I was going for a nice deep chestnut brown. But, apparently if you bleach your hair compulsively it goes a little insane when you deposit darker color onto it and the next thing you know it has gone into a mad frenzy, sucking up the color like a bloodthirsty vampire on a drinking binge. Who knew.
In the course of 30 minutes I went from platinum blond...to Elvis.
But, it didn't stop there. My friend Shelly saw my hair and decided she wanted to color hers darker. So, we got a box of hair color and a bottle of wine and set to work transforming her tresses. But then her three daughters wanted to change their beautiful Swedish blond hair too, so we got a few more boxes of hair color and another bottle of wine. But then Parker wanted to change his dirty blond hair to something lighter so we got another box of color and another bottle of wine. But then our Filipino neighbor wanted in on the fun and he asked us to bleach his short black hair so we got some bleach and another bottle of wine. But then our two Black neighbor kids wanted to go all Dennis Rodman with us so, with their mother's permission, we got out some more bleach and another bottle of wine.
And before we knew it, chaos ensued.
After a while the mixture of hair chemicals and wine created a thick fog and we sort of lost track of whose hair needed to be rinsed when. There were people running around all over the place with plastic caps on their heads and we really weren't sure how long any one's hair had been processing. Eventually we rinsed every one's head and surveyed our work. There they stood: three White girls, one White boy, one Filipino man, one Black girl, and one Black boy. Everyone had the same color hair. Orange. Something had gone wrong.
It was a little creepy, actually. The next day when my friend, Debbie, came to pick me up all the orange headed children were playing in the front yard. She took in the Stepfordian scene and then looked at me and said, "Does every child in this neighborhood have the same father?"
The damage wasn't permanent, though. Eventually everyone returned to their beautiful natural hair color. Although it seemed a bit calamitous when I saw that I had accidentally turned my hair black and their hair orange, in the end it really wasn't a big deal. It didn't take long before life...and hair... returned to normal.
Maybe a lot of changes in life are that way. In the moment they seem disasterous but in reality when we get used to it and things normalize, they just end up being part of what makes life interesting and beautiful. Change can be good.
Keep Calm and Color Your Hair.
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