What Has Happened to My Hair?

What happened to my hair? It used to be so thick and luxurious and now it lies thin and lifeless against my scalp. My hair used to gain me compliments when I would go in for a hair cut. I was always told how nice, thick and easy to style my hair was. I was able to just wash and air dry my locks. Letting the air dry it in free abandonment. These days I am actually embarrassed to have anyone work on my hair at all.

I have always snubbed the idea that my hair would look better if I permed or dyed it in some outrageous style or color. I loved the natural gloss that it once had and loved the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair. I now curse the way it sits on my head now in some strange fashion, acting as though it is some alien substance that has just latched onto my scalp at random. It waves without any real curl. It seems to just do it's own thing, whatever that may be. The nice sun streaked light brown color that I used to be so proud of, has given way to a dull mousy brown woven through-out with strands of silver. Was is the surgery that I had several years ago that took the life from my pate? Maybe it is hormones, either too many or too few? I only know that I miss the way things used to be. We once were a team. We used to be both on the same side. Now we struggle against each other with no solution in sight.

I gaze at photos of young beautiful women in magazines and wonder if their hair actually looks the way it appears in those glossy pages, or if it has been air-brushed? How can it lie so perfectly in such perfectly planned disarray? A woman's hair is supposed to be her crowning glory and mine feels like a random party hat that was passed out last New Year's Eve. How I long to have shiny, glorious hair. I want a man to beg me to let him touch it and not have to worry that it might slough off in his fingers.

My husband is used to my constant griping about how much "I hate my hair." That comment is as common in our house as a "please" or a "thank you" might be in someone else's. I saved up my money and looked through countless women's magazines to find the perfect hair do for my Beautician to copy. I have struggled with whether I wanted to have my hair colored or whether I would look better if I had some low-lights or maybe some high-lights added to my natural mousy color in some glorious transformation. I eventually made up my mind that I would go and have my shoulder length hair, cut and styled and have some natural looking high-lights added for some pizazz! I spent over two hours on the new me.

My Stylist and the other patrons in various stages of becoming beautiful almost applauded as I sat back and looked at my finished hair-do. I loved it. My husband claimed he loved it too. It looked almost like the "do" I had picked from the magazine with so much care. I felt young and almost beautiful once again. I almost oozed sex appeal. I looked at myself in the mirror and eagerly awaited the time when I could wash out the nasty chemical smell that clings to hair after a visit to the beauty shop. I anticipated the compliments sure to come my way the next day as all my acquaintances would see the "new me."

I got up early and happily got into the shower and used my favorite best smelling shampoo. I grinned as I pictured how nice I would look later on in the day when my husband took me out to dinner. I shampooed and conditioned and smiled. I dried my hair gently and combed my hair with care.I added my newly purchased hair gel that smelled of strawberries. I looked expectantly into the bathroom mirror and gasped. My hair hadn't changed much at all. Yes it was shorter. Really short! The lovely silver blond high-lights that I had the stylist paint into my hair, didn't look any different then my old strands of silver that had developed naturally in my mousy brown hair.

I wiped at my eyes and blew my nose noisily and waited for my husband to come home. We drove towards the restaurant where we usually ate and I tentatively peered at my husband and grumbled quietly under my breath, " I hate my hair." My husband just clutched the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.