Live like you were dyin'...with your hair?: Perms and Pixies

Yesterday i had booked a hair appointment. Throughout my childhood and teens I was the kind of girl to grow my hair long and then chop it off, perm it up, dye it whitey-yellow or maroon or whatever color happened to appear when the dye was washed out. Sometimes i still get restless for a change. It's harder to go out and "get it done" and I'm not brave enough to do it myself like we used to growing up. I wrote an e-mail to my mom that went something like this: "I'm getting a perm. I know, I know, "don't do it..." I'm going to. I need a change even if it's a bad one." As i drove to the salon i felt reckless. The Tim McGraw song "Live like you were dyin'" Was twirling around in my head. I inserted the words... "...I went and got a perm..." into the song and suddenly it didn't sound that daring. It just sounded really goofy. If i were "dyin'" would I want everyone talking about my new hairdo in the coffin. "Well, at least she squeezed every ounce out of life. She even went and got that there perm."

Hmmm...

I got to the salon and joked to the hairstylist about her probably not having done a perm since the 80's...my bravado was lessening. I tried to reason that i had a huge patch of curls under my poker straight hair and i either had to make it all straight or curl the living lights out of it. She looked at me doubtfully, told me to wait right there, brought out the curlers and told me that they only had little ones so no matter how loose they made it, it was still going to be a "tight one".

Hmmm...

I had booked a sitter. I had these 2 1/2 hours of what people call "me time". What to do. I told her to lighten my hair for summer and style it. She obeyed that request. It must have sounded less doubtful than my first. All week, knowing that I was going to get my hair done, Ellie kept asking to get hers done too. She wanted a very short pixie cut! I booked her appt. as i went to leave. Maybe she would chicken out like me. On the way there this morning i kept asking her "Are you sure?" "YUP!!" She beamed as they asked her name. She confidently removed her coat as they hung it for her and strutted to the chair like a pro. (She's never been to a salon in her life.) All the way through the haircut she smiled at herself in the mirror. The other women in the salon watched her with shock as her beautiful blond hair was snipped off a section at a time. One woman looked at me from under the dryer. "Big change! Did she ask for that herself?" I smiled nervously. "Yes, she did. Pretty fearless." We went home with her funky little hairdo and she's been beaming ever since. One of her cousins told her she looked like a boy. Ellie smiled: "Well, you look like a frog." ...O.k O.k. I know i shouldn't have, but my husband's family is terrible with teasing and so I prepared her with that line in case someone told her she looked like a boy. She used it like it was her own. Before we went to the salon this morning she had said to me. "If i hate it I can always get a hat. I don't care!" I love that. No fear, no worries over comments should someone else not like her choice. She just let loose and tried something new. That's Ellie for you though...confidently trying something none of her sisters have tried before. My little confident one. Love it.