Hair

I grew up with short hair. My 'story' has always been that my mom, widowed with two teens and two young daughters decided to skip the entire morning hair rituals and keep my sister's and my hair short. VERY short. Pixie cuts, they called them way back when. I vaguely remember having longer, curly hair during 6th grade - but that didn't last long. My subsequent school pics return to the short 'pixie' style.

Besides the 6th grade and a brief rebellious fling in my freshman year of college (when my hair reached my shoulders), my hair has been very short. At one point, it was about 1/2 - 3/4 inch all over. Made for very easy mornings - completely wash and go. My stylists (there have been many over the years) were told 'play with it and product it all you want but when I do it, I just wash it and let it dry on the way to work'. No fuss, no muss.

I've wanted to grow it out. Tried a couple times. But going from really short hair to long hair requires a lot of very long in between stages - where it's too short to be long and too long to be short - and not a lot of styles work with hair somewhere between short and long. I'd deal with the 'medium' for a bit and then give up and cut it all off again. I look cute with short hair - I have a longish face, so a short hairstyle sort of balances that feature out.

But, I found a stylist a couple years ago and she's wonderful. AND, she loves long hair and she loves to try to help people have the hair they always dreamed of. So my hair is now long - past my shoulders, approaching the middle of my back, almost. There are still some 'layers' we are working on and we are discussing the bangs. But my hair is officially grown out and still growing.

So, for the first time in my life, I am shopping in the hair doo-dad aisle. Barrettes, clips, headbands, scrunchies. These are things I now cannot live without. And I'm forty-five years old, so this world of hair accessories is like a new Mecca for me. Currently, a trip to Long's (which has the best variety, I think) ranks right up there with browsing through Dooney & Bourke or Sephora. I can spend hours in the hair aisle - finding just the right clips for a work party; just the right casual look for putting my hair 'up' on the weekends when I don't want to have to blow it dry and curl it. Add to that the curlers, blow dryers, a variety of brushes & combs, a straightening iron, several curling irons, etc. that litter the bathroom. I work hard at this hair. It is very time consuming. Certainly not something I could have done when my kids were little and needed every little thing done for them. But now, I'm the mom of teens and they can get themselves up and dressed and out the door - so I have 'time' (supposedly) to foof my hair.

And as if letting it grow out and adding all the time it takes to make it look good in the morning, I now get it highlighted and colored. I went blonde. And I'm never going back to mousy, boring, icky brown. Even if it was a light-ish brown which could be persuaded to get blondish in the summer if I used enough lemon juice. I am blonde now - and I love it. Except the sexist jerk at work who daily says 'do blondes have more fun?', I love everything about being a blonde. It's shiny and sleek and pretty and not a bit 'mousy' or boring. It's me - the me at 45 who finally has the time and the $$ it takes to maintain long, blonde hair. And I'm worth it...

Next, I'm working on ways to put it 'up' that are slightly more than just pulling up the long sides and clipping them at the top of my head. French braiding, 'up-do's' -these are things I am willing to learn. And I'm quite sure these styles will in all likelihood require additional accessories. I couldn't be happier.