Brunettes do have more fun

I done dyed my hair dark reddish brown. And I like it.

I used to dye my hair incessantly. And as I have recently been musing on a lot of things, it occurs to me that this says something about who I am and keep forgetting I am, and it is nice to be reminded.

It all started many moons ago. From the time I hit adolescence, I wanted red hair. Actually I probably wanted red hair since I was seven and saw Annie, but I don't recall it being a sticking point until I was in high school. I didn't grow up in the kind of family that would let me goth out like my peers with the Manic Panic, or go to the kind of high school wherein that behavior would be rewarded with less than 10 and 2, or come of age in a time where emo-experimentation was the rule rather than the exception. So, I stayed towheaded throughout four years of high school, aware that it was enough of an accomplishment to have gone from looking like a blonde version of said Little Orphan first day of freshman year (my one and only perm, which I did not want, having naturally curly hair, but was advised by my mom-manager to get instead of the cool assymetrical bob I wanted) to having long curly hair by graduation. The color was a-ok by me so long as I didn't look like a tool.

As a freshie at university, it was all I could do to get my sorry arse to class every morning. I walked around like a bun-head the entire first semester--get up, shower in gross communal dorm bathroom, pile hair atop head, secure with elastic, and go. I have a slide somewhere of me pensive in Spanish class looking like I was being tutored per child labor laws backstage at ABT. Judging from a photo taken the last day of that year, I began to wear it down or half-up, and I can't say it was an improvement over my corps de ballet look.

Sophomore year the long and curly trend continued as it seemed to go best with the frighteningly oversized striped button-down shirts which were my hot-to-trot frat party outfit du jour. Stayed blonde. It was what it was. I was trying on a life I was never meant to live for a while, and the notion of straying from that path was but a heartbeat away. By spring (I love how life is measured in school terms, because it does not involve the word "winter") things were slowly turning out to be different, but I held onto the locks out of fear of going where I wanted to go. What was framing my face--or hiding it from the world--became a foundation on which to slowly start building the me I was supposed to be.

By junior (mints?) time, it was hair today--gone tomorrow. That year was one of the most exhilarating and painful 365 days of my life. I was in love with an unattainable boy who told me I should bob my hair a la Fitzgerald's Berniece and dye it red if I wanted to. The idea that I could actually radically alter my appearance was a novel one. What, he asked, was the big deal? What, I asked myself, indeed? I don't really remember a lot about being that girl, but I do know that she made a clear and bold (for her) decision to change it up. The circumstances of home life that year made this possible--for the first time ever I did not care what my parents would say about pretty much anything I did. And in an interesting side note, the unattainable was attained. Perhaps there was a connection, perhaps not. I do know that one box of Nice'n'Easy and 25 minutes revealed a whole new me. And I rocked the redheaded look for most of that year, enduring sighs and downright insults at the holiday table (from which I subsequently bolted in order to get on with the attaining.) I didn't care. I thought I looked swell, and I know I felt swell. I was rebelling against everything I knew and ever resented and also achieving something I had wanted since belting out "Tomorrow" in the basement circa '85.

Senior year began well. Back to blonde by that fall, I entered the last year of non-reality-based living excited about everything. That year I cut my hair myself into an awesome Reality Bites inspired 'do that made me feel so fucking good, I still remember every snip of the scissors. That was the year I really settled down into being me. Yes, I would change and grow and develop scads over the next decade plus--and my hair would be every shade of the rainbow in the meantime.

Traumatic events often led to a change in appearance. So do acting parts. I moved to California as a barrette-wearing blonde when I was 21. I came back and got dumped and dyed my hair mahogany--it went well with the red-rimmed eyes--I just looked at a picture--I eventually got undumped and for the most part stayed blonde for my twenties, with some dye jobs (including one ill-advised experiment with henna and yak hair extensions) every few years, and lots of growing-it-out-only-to-go-chop-chop again in between. Eventually I decided to stay goldilocked--I thought it was time to settle into me and not be obsessed with switching it up every few months. And it worked. For a long, long time. And for everything else, there was wigs. I went dark again a few years ago because I felt pissed on and pissed off. It was a statement. It was an attempt to make myself as ugly on the outside as I felt I was on the inside. It worked--and after a while I went back to the b. And it was all fine and dandy.

Recently, though, I colored my hair dark, really dark for me, for the first time in about 10 years. And what I have discovered is that, while you can never recapture the hour of splendor in the grass, you can reclaim yourself for yourself--and from yourself--with some Loreal. I know this new look will not last, but there is something refreshing about realizing that the basis for who I am--which was celebrated way (way way) back when with some rebellious cut-and-color action, is still the basis for whom I am now.

It's a bit of a hair-raising situation, to be sure, but as they say on TV, I'm worth it.