Lighter than...

air?

Lighter.

I feel lighter today. There’s a weight that’s lifted off my shoulders and my neck. I can turn my head more freely, to look around me and see my world. I can stand taller. I feel cleaner. I feel clearer.

The deadlines I write of still loom. In my business, they always do. The boxes still sit from our move, some unpacked, some not, some opened, but still full, sticking their proverbial noses out at me. We have a guest coming for three weeks, and nothing’s ready.

But I feel lighter.

On the surface, it’s my hair. I went to Jae today, and when she asked, “Just a trim?” per usual, I told her I was feeling a little antsy. “Do whatever you want,” I said. After...jeez...20 years? of cutting my hair, I trust her. She knows me.

She talked me out of my itch to put in a colored streak. Just a little one, tucked under, at the nape of my neck, where you really couldn’t see it. “But is it me pushing 42 and trying too hard to be young?” I asked her. She paused. A long time. Got it.

So I read a silly magazine, and we caught up. She worked her magic, quickly, efficiently. With each snip, I felt cleaner and lighter.

Cut, all Jae Woo at Franz Sebastian Salon, Bethesda. Color, all mine.

It’s a little shorter and a little edgier than my recent long cut. I’m a sucker for long hair. I love being able to put it up, and I love feeling it fall down my back. It’s glamorous, and I have a naturally covetable hair color. Truth be told, though? While it had been a bit too long since my last cut, I was particularly lazy on hair maintenance this time around. I’m a once-a-week washer, at best (thank the lord for dry shampoo). I can blow dry my hair well, but I don’t. Even if I could find my dryer in the boxes, I’m lazy, and only blow it out once in a while. So my hair loses...something.

“You look good!” No.2 said when he saw me afterwards. “But it’s too crazy and poofy.” They like what they like - and what they’re used to.

So do we. We like what we like. We like what we’re used to. We like our habits. But today, I took a total of an hour, including the drive and parking, as Jae’s the fastest stylist in town, and let someone alter a little thing (because let’s face it, she knows me, and the cut just isn’t that radical) lift me up and out.

I took care of myself today, and honored myself by maintaining my physical appearance. I let go of whatever had been hanging on in my lazy hair: that overwhelmed feeling that doesn’t let me feel like I can wash it, that reluctance to “bother” with something so trivial when I have so many other things to do, that focus on everything else.

Wash. Wash. Wash.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Poof. Poof. Poof.

One hour. Lighter.