I dislike the fact that my hairdresser has moved to a downtown location but oh how I admire her brave for realizing that her creativity was being smothered and she needed to break free. She found that in this place in the middle of a bloody parking catastrophe as I’d like to call it. I’d follow that saucy minx anywhere even though I grow a ball of panic in the middle of my throat looking for a place to park where I’m not going to get murdered in an alley way.
I love her as a person and the magic that she works on my tresses.
I cannot remember the last time I had my hair cut and coloured. It was probably in November of 2018. That’s a long time. I realize that I have not been making myself a priority in my life. So today was the day and I was eradicating the grey that my mom had lovingly pointed out I had while I was barfing up liver duct pieces in the hospital.
Nothing is more comforting than being validated that you look like shit when you feel like shit.
As the store approached I saw a space that was available right in front and thank the Easter Bunny it wasn’t one of the ones where I had to embarrass myself trying to parallel park in. I zipped in and still managed to screw that up like a champ. I spent four more minutes nonchalantly trying to straighten my car and not kill anyone walking on the side walk.
I strutted in the shop and kind of wished I had some background music like “Survivor” with accompanying Beyonce wind blowing in my grey flyaway’s because sweet hell that would have been perfect. There was a gentle hum of the tattoo needle in the back. A long lean woman was getting a massive piece along the length of her ribs. She looked as cool as a cucumber. I however, was still sweating from parking my fucking tiny car in a spot that you could fit a giant school bus in directly the front of the shop.
Wimp, I mouthed to myself.
My hairdresser waved me over and gave me one of her reassuring squeezes. She flipped my ends and I just about cringed. She didn’t say a word. She knew we have been going through lots. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but she started, “Oh your sister’s hair. She keeps saying that everyone mentions that you two look alike with her new haircut! OH. MY. GOD! I didn’t even think of that when I chopped her hair off. Everyone keeps saying you look like twins almost. How awkward! So I picked out a different colour for you. You guys won’t look the same.”
For me?
Picked it.
What?
She went on to describe the colour. I always trust my hairdresser but the fact that we were going to change my hair because she got a haircut that looked like MINE already made me a little miffed.
More than miffed.
“I feel so bad about her hair. So we will just go with this for yours. And I really love this colour. It really suits you.”
Nice. Nice. I really did like the colour but I was put off by the fact that I had to change for someone else. This was my head. My hair. My appointment. My sister is ridiculously gorgeous and so what if we look alike. We are sisters. Y’all, I felt something starting to brew in my stomach.
I sat in the chair and watched her mix the batch of dye. She was giggling about something but I was busy swallowing an anger so fierce. Kind of like when you’re taking off on an airplane and you’re trying to stop your ears from popping – you take mini sips of your spit. I was taking down mini sips of this-is-bullshit! Ever since I had been in the hospital – I have been pissed off at a whole bunch of shitty people, shitty medical professionals, don’t get me started on incompetent pharmacists, gestures to all of the circumstances, and this. was. my damn. day. to. be. pampered.
She came back to me with the bowl of dye in her hands smiling.
“Cut off all my hair.”
“What?”
“Cut it all off. To here.”
“Whoa, you want to go short! I like it girl!”
Yup, I said internally.
Cut off 2018, January, February, and might as well get rid of this bloody March. All of it.
I watched her chop my hair without reserve.
It felt good hearing the scissors slice through my ends — releasing them, giving way to change, growth, new beginnings.
We both laughed at how incredibly shit life can be and how people behave when things go wrong. She spun me wildly in the chair and asked me how Shawn and Chunky would like my hair short and I said “I don’t care. It’s my hair doll.” When she was done working her love on my mane, we laughed at the state of my bangs and I told her to cut those m-fer’s too. It wasn’t the haircut that I intended on getting but I really dig it.
Something shifted in me during that hospital stay. I hate that I got that incredibly sick but maybe I needed to in order to put some things in my life under the microscope. For one, I cannot keep telling myself that I’m fine mentally and physically when clearly I am not. There’s only so much room in the back of the fridge to hide my symptoms before all of that garbage starts to grow mold and then it takes over, explodes out the sides and I end up in the hospital getting my butt swabbed my a beastly man nurse named Evan.
True.
I cannot let my doctors say anymore, “Well this turned up negative. Have you tried running? Kale?”
Cool. Have you tried reading a book assholes? Figure out what is hurting me. Fix it.
I feel angry a lot as of late and I’m trying to use it for good – to propel me forward instead of drag me. Sometimes you just have to do the hard things yourself. Be there for yourself. Brush the mud off when you fall, straighten up, and then cut all yo damn hair off.
And on this day, it started with a haircut then dumping my local pharmacist and 40+ people on Facebook.
PS. I still think I resemble my gorgeous sister. Not sorry one bit about it you sexy kitten.
**I adore my hairdresser. She would never steer me wrong.
