Give Me a Head of Hair ......

I have many obsessions but the hair on my head is generally not my biggest concern. I never had the flair for styling my hair nor was I taught how to. My mother, whose hair was poofed and flipped up at the ends like Mary Tyler Moore, dictated my hair do well into my preteen years. As a child, I always had pigtails. I was a towhead with long thick hair which when left unsecured, turned into a dense mat of tangled outgrowth. Think "dread locks", yes, I was way ahead of my time. But, mother wouldn't allow my wild child ways, she was adamant about the pigtails. And so, in most of my childhood photos I resemble a Heidi with a Dennis the Menace attire. Yes, spunky Heidi-Menace with a pot belly, skinny arms and legs ( how I long for those now, not the pot belly... I wish that would go away) wearing capri pull-on pants with a crew neck tee shirt, tight yellow braids hanging along the side of my face with a hint of "your mother must cut your hair" French Bangs. I should tell you here, dear reader, that French bangs were not suppose to be part of the Heidi look. Combine a frustrated mother, scissors and fidgety child and you have trouble right here in River City.

My mother had STYLE! She was beautiful, too!

Whenever my mother uttered the words "your bangs are getting too long", fear struck my heart like a double-edged sword and the "fight or flight" adrenaline rush would kick in. With a mother like mine, flight was the only option. I would usually run and hide on the top bed of the bunk, squeezing myself against the wall, hoping no one would see me. I once even hid in a large pile of dirty laundry in my sister's closet thinking I could blend in, kind of like ET in a closet full of stuffed animals. Mother's have a sixth sense when it comes to their children whether they are being naughty or nice. In my case, my mother must have smelled the fear (or someone tattled on me) because I was always found. The real struggle was trying to get me to sit still while mother, silver shears tightly clinched in her right hand, clipped away at my bangs like Edward Scissorhands. Unfortunately, my mother did not have the skill of Edward nor the patience of Job. SHE was, however, a perfectionist. Mom would take one step back from me, pause with one arm tucked beneath her breast, the other holding up her chin while looking at me in contemplation, THEN jump back in, exhausting numerous attempts to straighten my crooked bangs. After one too many head adjustments and groans from my mother for me to PLEASE! sit still, finis. My once long and flighty bangs became eyelash-like wisps of hair over the crown of my headline. I cried buckets of tears... oh, the humiliation I had to face the next day at school looking like my forehead had grown four inches above my eyebrows overnight. All I needed was green face makeup and I could pass for Frankenstein's daughter... with yellowish white Heidi pigtails, of course.

After freeing myself from the bond of mother and her scissors, I let my hair grow long and straight, parted down the middle, the trademark hair style for hippy women across the nation. Then Jane Fonda did the unthinkable (no, not posing with North Vietnamese soldiers), she cut her long locks to a stylish and freeing shag. Yes, the shag.  This is the hairstyle I sported the sophomore year of high school. By the time I was a Senior, my hair had grown back to long and straight, parted down the middle. Over the years I have sported a Dorothy Hamil do, an edgy Linda Mc Cartney bordering on Ziggy Stardust style, Madonna's permed tight locks with lacquered bangs and sides, Princess Di's short cut with a ducktail and Sarah Jessica Parker's wild and unkept waves. Amazingly, from growing out the Princess Di, I discovered my hair had gone wavy on me. Move over, Sarah! But maybe just an inch because in reality, that is when the "hair woes" stuck it's ugly foot in the door. I had never used a blow dryer, hot rollers (or cold for that matter) curling iron or flat iron on my own, in my life. At fifty, when the "Sarah look" grew boring, I decided I better start learning to style my hair using the tools of the trade. I wanted straight hair like Jennifer Aniston, soft curls like Scarlet Johanson, I wanted a messy ponytail like Cameron Diaz (my attempts made me look more like Snookie) or a wild flowing un-frizzed (emphasis on un-frizzed) mane of hair like Penelope Cruz. Am I asking too much? Unfortunately, all of my purchases of styling products and tools, quizzing my stylist, consulting beauty magazines and a honest attempt to make this collective knowledge work, fell flat. Why, oh why? What was the challenge? Holding my arms above my head, coordinating a brush in one hand and an electrical object (which is hot!) with the other, wishing I really did have "eyes in the back of my head" resulted in torture for my hair, arms and back and a few burns here and there. Really, for a fifty year women styling her hair for the first time well, this is like trying to balance an elephant on the head of a pin ~ impossible

Being recently retired, I have had to put myself on a budget. However, being true to the poll ~ that surprised even the likes of Katie Couric (never wanted her hairdo) ~ people whose incomes that have been affected by the recession, still spend money on luxuries like salons, spas and massages.  I invested a chunk of money on a Keratin Treatment to straighten my hair. Alas, the shackles have dropped from my flat-iron burned arms and I am free (at least for the next 3 to 5 months) from hair obsession. Call me silly, call me self-centered, call me lazy but when you do call, you won't find me in the bathroom struggling with my hair.