All I wanted was a fresh, sassy haircut. Not the sassy-pants visceral responses from my beloved children.
I bravely chopped off my A-line bob, which I had been calling the “mom-bob”. I say bravely, because I am surrounded by women with long to very long locks of flowing, or wavy, or stick straight hair. But still long. I was blessed with very fine hair, and have had shorter hair most of my adult life. Chris met and married me with short hair, thank God, and has never imposed any sort of “you must have long hair to be beautiful” nonsense.
Of course, I didn’t chop it; my forever-hair-stylist-Dave did. I had been salivating over short-short cuts for a year. Looking through fashion magazines and watching Red Carpet shows only fueled my desire. And then, Michelle Williams ruined me. The talented actress is photographed in the Louis Vitton campaign. I was undone. I was ready. Almost fearless. And my husband was ready. Well, sort of.
Snip, snip, a little color and 100 minutes later in Champions Salon, I was new.
However, silly and superficial, a fresh look feels invigorating. My mom used to say to me that my face came alive with short-short hair, and I felt that way. Inside too.
I kept looking in my rearview mirror the whole way home. Sunglasses on, sunglasses off. Berry lips. Smile. No smile. Ya know. The girlie-girl stuff. I was a really safe driver.
THEN, snapped into after-school reality, I arrived home. And when my three darling children all saw the new me, they CHOPPED me up with their responses. Oh so many responses and opinions! At first, one of my littles wouldn’t even look at me. I will keep it anonymous who said what, but here is the life-giving feedback I received:
- Where did it go”
- Are you getting your hair back?
- Are you going to be bald?
- If you start wearing skull jewelry, Mom, you could go all Goth.
- It’s REALLLY short, Mom. You kinda look like a boy.
- When are you growing it back? Soon?
- I mean, its ok, its not my favorite. You don’t look like my mom.
- Now you can dress up like Pink for Halloween.
Wow. Even our dog, Gracie, looked at me sideways and seemed to wonder if it was me.
Sheesh. Good thing I have thick skin, a strong mind and a sense of humor. These remarks come on the tail of my daughter Kate saying to me in what I thought was a sweet goodbye moment before school, until….”You have too much eyeshadow on, Mom.” Ouch.
Kids are so unfiltered and honest. I love what spills out of their minds and hearts so freely.
I tried to humor them and get us all moving into our after-school routine of snack, homework, chores and then dinner. But to no avail. The energy was all aflutter and we were out of sync. I was stupidly and vainly distracted with trying to take THE PERFECT PICTURE to post on Facebook and Instagram. I knew my peeps there would cheer me on with emoticons and love despite my children’s frowny faces.
As I sat in the salon yesterday, looking amazing with foils all over my head, I thought, it’s too bad heart and soul transformations aren’t as fast and painless as hair transformations. But that is definitely a post for another day…
Excuse me now, while I go play with my hair. 😉
She Runs A Good Race 