Today, I had what might be the best hair cut and color of my life.
I’m not exaggerating, here, folks. It wasn’t anything drastic – a couple inches shorter, a shade darker – but when the 3 hour journey (I have a lot of hair, y’all…) was complete, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Yes, THAT is what my hair should look like!”.
Maybe it’s silly to talk about hair like that. If anything qualifies as a first-world problem, it’s bad hair days and prematurely grey hair that grows abnormally fast and requires coloring every 4-5 weeks.
But somehow, as I marveled over my new hair tonight, my thoughts stumbled into the idea of my hair as a metaphor. So bear with me.
If you read this blog and know me at all, you know that the last couple of years have been pretty topsy-turvy for me. That at the end of my first year of fellowship, I wasn’t sure I really recognized myself or liked the me that I saw. I felt hardened and like I was grasping at anything that resembled something I could control.
About 3 weeks before my move to Nashville, I was in desperate need of a haircut, and in my desperation ended up at a new salon with a new stylist, not being able to book either one of my favorite Birmingham stylists in a timely fashion. The result was… not pretty. It wasn’t a total disaster, but my hair was just not really happy with what she had done.
When I moved to Nashville, I decided something had to be done about the un-prettiness. I got online and started hunting through curly-hair websites for a recommendation (my hair is relentlessly wavy and requires a bit of a special touch to really behave itself).
I found a recommended salon with 2 locations, which seemed ideal, as one was near my house and the other near work. I picked up the phone and held my breath, and after 5 minutes found myself booked 2 days later with Bill, because Bill had an opening. Yay, hair rescue!
So I arrived for my early morning appointment with Bill, with my unhappy hair all pulled up into a messy bun, armed with pictures of how I wished my hair would look. Bill came and sat with me at the little cafe table where I was nursing my cup of coffee and had me pull down my hair. He had me pull out the bun, and within 5 minutes had both named the previous un-nameable (at least by me) issue with my hair – I felt like I had 2 different haircuts – AND had identified the reason I felt that way (some thinning technique the new girl had employed in attempt to tame my waves). Then he told me we were going to have to rehab my hair. He never even looked at the pictures.
And so we did. For 2 years, I have been slowly growing my hair longer and longer, getting my hair to the point that the 2 haircuts have become 1. About 9 months ago, I decided to do away with the bangs I added during residency, and they are finally to the point that you can’t tell they were ever bangs.
When I turned 30, I decided it was time to stop doing my own hair color, and so added Lindsay to my hair-care team. (Bill could do it, but because he is awesome and didn’t think it was really necessary for him to do my simple no-highlights-one-process color when someone else in the salon could do it just as well and cheaper, with him to consult as needed, he sent me to Lindsay. Who is amazing.)
(Oh. As it turns out, Bill is the salon owner. He just happened to have the open appointment. He also just happens to have a very… well, let’s call it a high profile clientele. Let’s just say I was having my hair done the day of the CMA awards and the makeup artist who was there that day just assumed I wanted my makeup done. To go to the awards ceremony. Heh. But because Bill is awesome, you would never know that from his price.)
The funny thing is, I’ve stopped bringing in pictures. Instead, I say vague things like, “I don’t know, I just feel like it’s too heavy around my face. Can you make that not happen?” or “I think I just want a sort of… medium chocolate brown-ish color.”
Because here’s the thing: I trust Bill and Lindsay. I know they know better than I do, so I indicate the general idea of what I want to do with useless descriptions and hand waving, and then I let them do what they need to do.
But I didn’t used to be that way. I used to bring pictures to every appointment, and leave a little disappointed when the haircut didn’t look JUST like the picture. I wanted total control, even though I (clearly) am not the best judge of how my hair needs to be cut and colored (exhibit A: the time I used permanent platinum blonde hair dye on my dark brown hair. Yes, it was orange. And right before school pictures. Of course.)
And, hello? What is my greatest struggle? Letting go of the details in my life. Learning to give up control. Learning that it’s okay not to know everything a year in advance and have it go exactly as I had planned 100% of the time.
But that has really been what this last year has been all about: giving up control. Finding freedom in trusting God and trusting God in other people. Softening. Living in the adventure and the anxiety. Learning to breathe in the moments, good and bad.
At my last appointment before this one, Bill told me that he really loved my hair without bangs, that it made me look softer and more open, more accepting.
Today, I took the final step in hair rehab, basically giving Bill the green light to take off a couple inches, instead of just a trim (and to fix the overwhelming “flower child” vibe I was feeling – that is literally the only real direction I gave other than how much to cut), and told Lindsay to take me a shade darker, and more neutral. She never showed me swatches of what she was going to do, and I swear Bill only cut for about 5 minutes, chatting with me about his dogs all the while.
And then it was exactly what I was looking for.
As I was walking out the door today, reveling in my amazing hair, Bill told me that if he had to pick one client who had changed their look the most from the moment he first met them until now, it would be me.
Oh, Bill. If only you knew. If only you really knew.
Quote for the day:
“Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself.” - Hubert de Givenchy