29 days of giving challenge - how a haircut can change your life ... day 15

A generation or more ago, women went to the hair salon once a week to catch up on the gossip and to have their hair shellacked into weather resistant helmets.  That may not have been the goal, but I was never able to touch my grandmother's hair without wondering if I was going to get a splinter in my hand after I moved it. 

In the 80s (if anyone can remember that long ago), some of us suffered from a quarterly ailment referred to as PERM ADDICTION.  Either at home or in a salon, you allowed someone to roll tiny strands of your hair onto itty bitty rollers and then pour on a vile smelling liquid.  The liquid transformed straight hair or hair without a lot of body into other things.  I usually looked like a deranged poodle after it was over and I smelled worse for about a week.

Now when my grey hair (or as my niece used to call them, my 'sparkles') get out of line and become far too visible, I have my hair both cut and colored.

What was good about those rituals?

Each time a woman changes her hair (drastically), it means she is able and often willing to make other changes in her life.  I don't know if this is true of men but think about bootcamp and the big piles of hair the recruits leave on the floor.

I've allowed myself to wander and get stuck in a rut.  So, when I had my hair cut/colored on day 15, I gave myself a gift.  I let the person with the power (wielding the scissors and the one who knows which bottle looks good on my hair) to have free reign.

In some ways I gave her a present - the ability for her to let her vision free.  In others I got the present, an attitude shift.

Don't get me wrong.  The haircut is lovely and if you are in Phoenix, I highly recommend her.  But the attitude shift is the big one for me. 

It lets me become someone who is different, willing to take chances, willing to make changes, willing to clean out the old business cards cluttering a drawer in the kitchen.