Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I miss my goldie locks

For several weeks, the brunette thing has really had me going. I've enjoyed my dark haired status and have really gown into the role of the brunette--an intelligent, sultry, slightly more intimidating, no bullshit brown-haired version of myself.

But now, with 80 degree days upon us, my brown hair feels out of place on top of my head. This weekend, the Mathematician and I took a special trip to Newport, where we sat in the sun on a patio enjoying seafood & bloody mary's, made out on the beach we visited on our first date, and had a curious dinner at the most peculiar yet enchanting restaurant in Newport, Elizabeth's Cafe on Thames Street. The weather was glorious, the day was perfect, and I couldn't have ordered up a more perfect Saturday. There was just one small problem: I didn't feel entirely myself, and it was entirely because I am a brunette.

As a blondie I felt natural in the sun. Long before I started this bleaching business, I looked forward to the natural bleaching effect of sunlight on my brunette hair. Long summer days spent lounging at the beach always cooked my locks up to a lovely golden hue, and a week on vacation usually left me with at least a few wispy streaks of real, live, naturally blonde hair. As a brunette now, in the midst of all the sunshine, and the sparkling preview of warm summer weather, I felt strange.

We stole a few moments in the shade while waiting for a table for lunch. The Mathematician looked at a map and tried to determine how we should be spend our day, while I sat and stared wordlessly at myself in the tiny compact mirror that I carry in my purse. A brunette woman stared back at me in that tiny little square of mirror. Her skin looked paler than usual, and the small wrinkles that have begun to crease the space between her eyebrows and her nose more pronounced.

I've come to love and accept that brunette since my initial deblonding in December, and I appreciate everything she has offered me since that fateful day. She has allowed me to be such a different woman than I was as a blonde, and I am forever grateful to her for showing me the vastly different ways that I could be me with just a deeper shade of brown. But as I stared in that tiny little compact mirror, I knew--the brunette looking back at me wasn't the real me.

It is official. I want my blonde locks back.

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