so i dyed my hair red on saturday (correction my trusted and beloved and professional) hair stylist dyed my hair red on saturday. like MJ from spiderman red -which duh, is super fun but quite drastic for someone so risk-averse. and i’m not gonna lie, on the drive home from the salon, i think i flipped down my sun-visor mirror at least a dozen times at every stop light pause i got. as if somehow unless i confirmed it in the mirror, i couldn’t truly accept my view new hair color as fact. and even days later, i still do a double take as i catch a glimpse of my crimson locks in the mirror, unsure of who it is staring back at me.
but i tell myself that this change in aesthetics, as seemingly superficial and trivial as it may be, will soon become commonplace; that i might all but embrace my new life as a ginger and that life prior to my newly changed hair color will all but become a distant memory.
because outside of my recent hair dying adventures, i think this is how i seem to cope with change overall.
at first, it’s well, a bit terrifying, and i find myself checking life’s proverbial sun-visor mirror 87 times to verify its truth. but then, a week passes, and with it, my initial shock and fear. acceptance slowly sets in and soon after, a subtle confidence begins to emerge. this is my hand, i think, these are my circumstances.
and like this embracing of my new life as a redhead, i learn to settle into this new reality. i realize this new chapter is exactly where i need to be. and my affections for it begin to grow until the “me” from yesterday is the stranger, and today’s self is now the recognizable figure in the mirror.
and here’s what staring back at me these days.
