Five years as a blond
I did it for a reason nobody knew about. Then I found out the reason didn't hold.
“You’re not going to like this,” she stated while fiddling with the back of my hair.
“Well, I’d like to try.”
“You’re going to hate the process of getting to the color you want.”
“Well, tell me what I need to do. I want to try.”
It was 2021 and it seemed like everyone was changing up their hair. Some were embracing their natural gray hair after years of dyeing it. A few were choosing pink. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go…lighter.
Up until then, I had spent my entire life as a brunette—except for one summer in high school when I experimented with Sun-In and added a pumpkin orange sheen to my dark hair.
Having blond hair wasn’t something I had ever thought of for myself. I’d always been happy as a brunette. But when my dark hair started to compete with the pesky gray hair in a losing battle, I gave it some consideration.
It felt like I was having to put more and more hair dye on my head to keep those grays at bay.
I started doing some research on how I might blend the gray a little more naturally without it taking over my whole head. And what I landed on was going lighter—as in blond. My reasoning was that as the grays grew in, they would blend more seamlessly with the blond and I wouldn’t have to dye my hair as often. I discovered that even Martha had gone this way with her hair, and if this was the path Martha Stewart had taken, well, then surely it would be good for me too.
“You’re going to have to grow out your gray hair for the next 5-6 months. I can’t just put blond hair dye on top of your brunette hair.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
My hairdresser, who had been in charge of my hair for over 10 years, shook her head and said again, “You’re going to hate it.”
And yes, in her defense, I did hate growing out the gray hair. I am such a visual person and that gray hair made me feel tired when I saw my reflection in the mirror, but I persevered.
Because there was a deeper reason, one that went beyond just blending the gray.
Seven years earlier my mom had died from ALS. While researchers don’t fully understand what causes ALS, one of the possibilities they continue to study is exposure to chemicals. Watching my mom pass from this disease had been traumatic to say the least. I found myself always looking for places in my own life where I could reduce my exposure to unnecessary chemicals. Less hair dye seemed like another place to consider.
And if I’m being honest, I wasn’t only doing it for myself. I never wanted my kids to watch me go through what I’d watched happen to my mom.
So, I grew out the gray.
I remember being in New York City that spring visiting my daughter who was living there and being painfully self-conscious of the “gray grow-out” on the crown of my head. I played like it was no big deal, but inside I didn’t feel like I looked like me.
But I kept going and six months later, I emerged from my hairdresser a bona fide blond. I walked into the house after my appointment with my new blond locks and asked my main man, “Well, what do you think?”
He took in my new look and said, “Wow, babe! Wow!” A pause, a raised eyebrow smile, and then, “You…you look like a movie star.”
“Good answer,” I said.
So began my five years of being a blond.
And I felt self-conscious about it. It seems silly but when I knew I would be seeing people who had known me as a brunette my whole life, I would feel some kind of low-grade anxiety about running into them.
I was also having to put just as much dye on my head as I was before. My whole deeper reason for wanting to reduce the chemicals I was putting on my head just wasn’t panning out.
I started asking my hairdresser—a different one than from before— to add back in some darker bits each time I saw her. And each time I left the salon, I was starting to feel more like me.
I re-researched the causes of ALS to see if anything new had been discovered, specifically around hair dye, and each time my research drew the same conclusion that there was no correlation between hair dye and ALS.
This last hair appointment, I said to my hairdresser, “Let’s just take it all the way back to brunette. Back to what I know.”
She played with the blond locks on the back of my head and said, “You’re not going to like it. I have so many ladies come in and say they want to go back to what they had years ago, and they don’t like it.”
“Well, I want to try.”
“Okay, but you’re not going to like it,” and she shook her head before reluctantly heading off to mix up the dye.
In the course of one appointment, I was a brunette again. My hair was maybe a wee bit darker than the inspirational photo I had shown her, but I looked in the mirror and I looked like me again.
I texted a picture to our family chat and my daughter responded with, “Yay! She’s back!”
Sometimes in life we make a decision for all the right reasons. We give it a real chance. We live with it day-to-day for a while. Maybe we even keep tweaking it, hoping eventually it will feel right. And sometimes it just never does.
I’m starting to think there’s nothing wrong with admitting that. We don’t have to stick with a decision simply because we once chose it. We need to give ourselves permission to say “that relationship, that job, that house, that goal, or even that hair color…isn’t right for me.”
Sometimes that means trying something completely new. And sometimes that means going back to something that already felt like you.
You are the only one living your actual life.
These days when I catch my reflection in the mirror, I don’t really think about my hair at all.
I just see me again.
Cheers,
Carrie
Correction to last week’s Cornish Game Hen story:
My sister called me after reading last week’s story, and said,
“You didn’t serve the green beans with shallots at that dinner party. You started serving that dish years later when you wanted to replace the creamed green beans at Thanksgiving. No, you served asparagus with the Cornish Game Hens and remember, it still had a bunch of sand on it and we all sat there and chewed on the grit at the table.”
Nothing like a younger sibling to keep you honest. Love ya, Sis!