Reinvention Through Hair

I wrote this in honour of ThrowbackThursday on Facebook. You can join in the conversation here.

Dahlinks, may I present The Recent Hair Evolution.

In pictures!

Actually, it’s been rather fascinating to me to see myself actualize through this “montage”.

In the first one, I was feeling very Venus, almost timeless.
I loved how I looked and yet my insides kept squeaking, 
“You’re not this anymore.”

An incredibly irritating message when you still don’t know what this is.

****

I took the second one at the hair salon, minutes before I sat down in the stylist’s chair, to have 8″ of history lopped off.

I was soooo nervous (you can see it, yea?) and yet deeply determined.

I’d changed sooo much over the past 7 years. 
(Helllooo, Uranus in Aries transit!)

We’d downsized by nearly two thousand square feet; moved to 5 different places – each one an outside reflection of an inside ‘decluttering’ of societal norms and age-related expectations.

We’d become grandparents – something that had me reexamining everything about why-and-what I’m building.

I’d unraveled, unknotted and re-knit my Knowing, my message and my mission.

I had contemporized myself – shedding years of habits and beliefs that’d kept me in a holding pattern of this-always-worked-so-I’ll-keep-doing-it.

That’s not growth. That’s stagnation, even when it looks “classic” or “timeless”.

I had to get my outsides to reflect my current insides.

Or I knew that what I saw in the mirror would pull be back into Who-I-Used-To-Be.

I wasn’t brave enough yet to go as short as I wanted.
But 8″ of hair came off.

And it felt like shedding an exoskeleton.

***

Three months later, I cut it again. Getting shorter. Braver.

Played with curls …

and coifs

and a rediscovered glamour.

I felt the same excitement as I did at every First Dress Rehearsal I’d ever had in my 25 years on stage.

Slowly, the wardrobe/makeup/hair was coming together.

Slowly I was beginning to SEE my Next Self in the mirror.

Still my insides whispered incessantly,
“More!”

***

Last week, I went shorter still.

Asymmetrical – which, for a Libra is revolutionary lol
Almost too short to curl but still deeply glam.
Freer.
More mod.
More sure of myself.

Finally, my insides are quietly satisfied.
We’re in sync.
Aligned.
Ready for what’s next.

I am.

For now.