Black #1 (Subtitle: I Go Back To Black)
If you think about it, hair is weird. Yeah, biologically speaking, it once kept us warm. Now? We are hairless in comparison. Why do we tie up so much of our identity with our hair? Why is it we look to changing our appearance during a crisis, or immediately following a crisis?
I'm no different. I'm usually one that bounces between long and short hair and all the misery in between. Once I got bored with the cuts, then came the color. Purple ombre mohawks, and silver mohawks, steel blue... I was all over the place. I didn't care what others were thinking. I had lost my identity and I was feverishly trying to get it back, under my own terms.
I was a new mother, feeling like the weight of the world and the success of my family hung on my shoulders. I kept looking for something else. I did the everyday life shuffle/struggle, and continued to feel awful. Depression doesn't begin to describe it, but this feeling was more than that. I was sad, lonely, but married. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I started slowly realizing I was looking for someone.
I was looking for myself.
I was trying to find my identity.
I had lived for someone for so long, and tried to be a part of their world. Good, bad, or indifferent, it just was. I tried on different looks to see how others would perceive me. What I kept finding was resistance to the look. People didn't like it because I didn't fit their idea of me. Okay cool. I didn't fit their mold; their preconceived notions on what I should look like. There was a piece of me that relished the abrasion. I loved the feeling of going against the grain. I realized that was part of me. I'm not the norm, or at least I didn't feel like the norm. I realized I am not satiated by typical. There's comfort in complacency, and I understand that feeling to ease. I wish I wanted that. I don't. I tasted the sweetness, and I wanted more. I felt like Sophie in 'Sophie's World'. I knew that my hair wasn't going to keep doing the trick.
I stopped with the mohawks and wild colors, and... I started dyeing it black again. I started trying to grow it out. I needed to find something else. What that is, I'm not sure. I know it's not complacency. I know that the daily 9-5 grind doesn't fill my cup. I dream of being a writer. I dream of being a therapist. I long to start support groups, and help those around me find their potential. I yearn to surround myself with people; with loving caring people. I'm working on these things. One day at a time. One decision at a time. One written word at a time will get me there.
But for now, I go back to black.
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| Long hair circa 2010 |
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| Then came the pixie 2010/2011. I had a variation of this haircut for a few years. |
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| Then came the color, 2013 |
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| Silver! 2013 |
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| Purple/ombre mohawk 2013/2014(ish) |
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| Blue steel 2015 (yeah, you know it's a Harry Potter thing) |
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| Black, growing it out 2017. I think I had dyed my hair platinum months before moving back to Maine. |
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| 2019: Longest my hair has been since 2010 and last dye was spring of 2018. No dye, partially gray. Time to dye it black again. |
“To Summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit's fine hairs. where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves even deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of the fall off, but other cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' but none of the people down there care.
'What a bunch of troublemakers!' they say. And they keep on chatting: Would you pass the butter, please? How much have our stocks risen today? What is the price of tomatoes? Have you heard that Princes Di is expecting again?”
― Sophie's World
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