About every six to eight weeks I go see Heather. She runs what could still be called a beauty salon. She has spaces that she rents to nail technicians, hair dressers, aestheticians, massage therapists. It is a lively space.
She cuts and colours my hair. I know a lot of people gave up colouring their hair in the last few years. I get it. It is an extra expense and grey is as good as golden for some people. It looks beautiful on them. I myself think about it. I even talk to Heather about it sometimes. She convinces me to keep my colour, that I have very little grey, just enough to look like a mouse. She never said that exactly of course. She has a vested interest in me colouring my hair, but she would tell me if she thought it was a good thing to go grey. My grey is not a shiny lovely grey, and really, it is easy to convince to me. I like going to the hairdresser.
I like playing with my hair. I don't do dramatic changes, though I would like to sometimes. Once I had some blond streaks. Within a week I had Heather return me to brown. Brown you see, dark brown, is where I feel I belong. Inside this 58 year old soul is the heart of a brown haired girl and I reside there with her when I sit in Heathers' chair.
Now if you know me, you know I like things to be real and I'm all about natural. I don't want fake plants or flowers. I like to touch living things. I love wool not acrylic. In my home I love wood, and linen, stone and wool.
I like to feel like I am fully myself. Once I saw this lipstick that supposedly plumped your lips and I liked the idea and then I thought... no just be happy with your own lips. My face is aging. It has lines and puckers and I accept them. I don't lie about age, or even tell myself that sixty is the new fifty. I am happy to be 57 and healthy. Actually deeply thankful, more than happy. So I feel like a bit puffy under my eyes and lines on my face are nothing. I just smile at myself in the mirror, lift my chin, put on a bit of makeup and go meet the day.
Aw yes, that's the other thing. I like my bit of make up. I do. I love to even out my ruddy Irish skin tone with a foundation and colour my cheeks. I touch up my eyelids, put on my mascara and finish with a swipe of lipstick. All this takes less than five minutes. I learned all this from my mother, well not the mascara.
So my hair and my make up are part of me. Maybe not the real part, but they are a part that makes me feel put together and happy as I go out the door. I try to be as a real as I can be but I have my limits, and that is colouring my hair. I look forward to it. After about seven weeks it starts to get all frizzy and hard to manage. And I start longing for Heathers' chair to bring it back to life again.
So I am holding fast to that brown haired girl inside of me.
57 going on 27? Nope.
I am fully aware that this hair has seen a lot of years. I am just gonna nurture it because it nurtures me. About every eight weeks, I will come out with a slightly different shade of brown hair and that's ok. It's me. Real as I can be but with a good dye job and some lipstick.
