Tuesday 8 May 2012

The unbearable lightness of being... a redhead.


You’ve pretty much all seen my red hair, my new cropped style. Most people complimented it. I really liked how it looked myself actually, unexpectedly.

But, my red hair was not long for this world. Why? Well, it just didn’t feel like 'me'.

Having met numerous new people since Shave or Dye, I found myself telling them about it. Trying to 'explain' my red hair. It took a while before it clicked with me what the problem was. I was trying to let them down gently.

My red hair was cool, it was funky, exciting even. I am none of those things. This was a rather depressing realisation, and at first I kept my hair red, thinking perhaps it would boost my self esteem or something.

But I was still self-conscious. Everywhere I went, I felt like a fraud. That at any moment I could be found out, and ridiculed.

Finally, the answer came to me. I don’t WANT to be cool. I’ve been desperately uncool for thirty years and now is not the time to change. I have no idea how one becomes funky, but it seems like it would take a lot of effort. Exciting? That’s a day when you get three loads of washing dry, right?

So, I am once again a brunette. It’s still not my natural colour, but it’s closer, and I’ll get my natural colour back in time.  
I am a fairly boring person. I like to knit, and read, and sit on the couch watching House and Bones and How I Met Your Mother with my husband. I jump in muddy puddles with my kids, sing nursery rhymes and made-up songs from morning till night (even in the office), and sometimes I mop my way out of the house in the morning.

And, like my natural hair colour, that suits me just fine!

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