Recently, I added some Really Bright Red Highlights to my Hair

Now if you have ever been a phony red head like me, then you might be able to relate to what I am about to say, if not, then you’ll have to take my word on it:

Being a Red Head is like having Anorexia of the Hair.

Now, I don’t mean that in a way to mock people who really suffer from such an issue, but I have found that I have a similar issue with my hair. You know when a anorexic person looks in the mirror they see themselves as fat when every one sees skin and bones? Well, I look in the mirror and I see brown hair. It’s almost never red enough. I can’t seem to find the right shade. It fades out. I admit, I have an issue. So, I was having a hair crisis of that sort and hit up the reds big time. Right now, I feel very content. Alas, bit bright and insane, but I like it.

So this past Saturday, we had a wedding to go to and, in planning for that wedding, I decided that I wanted to crimp my hair. I could get away with crazy red crimped hair for the wedding since it was a punk rock wedding and besides, I have so had a hankering for a crimper. I don’t know when my last crimper died, but it’s been quite a while and I since the age of 16, I have had a thing for the crimped hair ala Robert Smith and Siouxie Sioux.

So, I go on Friday with the kids to Columbia Beauty Supply which is like THE best hair dye and Halloween store in the universe and total mecca for me. I mean, wigs, hair pieces, dye, skulls, costumes, masks and everything all in one place! Claud Paradise! I have to ask the poor girl behind the counter where the crimping irons are and she has no clue what I am talking about. She’s too young to know a crimper if it.. crimped her butt! But she knows the word iron and among the millions of flat irons is the same dern brand of crimper that Lauralei and I rode our bicycles like 15 miles to get when we were 15 and the dern thing is still only 20 bucks! I’m thrilled!

So I do up my hair the way I have forever now.. (OMG over 25 years!) ..lots of Super Extra Hold Aqua Net. It’s so NOT 2009 hair.. not smooth and shiny, but big and crimped oh so lovely. Stinking like hair spray and looking fine. And go to the wedding. And the next day I go and do my thing sporting the crimps.. because here’s a secret.. crimped hair works better a few days out of washing..and looks better the more you wear it.

And so today (I did bathe, just not my hair!) I have to go to work and I go to take this massive amount of sprayed crimped hair and put it in a French Twist thing so I don’t look like a total mad woman..and I take a handful of my bright red crimped hair.. and FLASHBACK!

I am 18 and working in His office and after a long night of clubbing, I have to play receptionist and pull back my hair.

It was the actual physical sensation or the hair that just jolted me.. in my bathroom safe at home… back to another time and place before adoption came into my life.

It was very powerful.

And I remembered the last time I had hair my hair this bright was when I was with Max’s father.

It was that winter that we were together that I tried to bleach out the been-dying-it-black-for-years hair to a lighter color to get it to be blue.. and it didn’t work. So after my crying in the girls bathroom of FIT because the 100 volume wig peroxide was burning my scalp, we could only put in a red over all the reddish shades of color I had or the blue would like like seaweed green. I think Lauralei had a Manic Panic Pillarbox Red (or was it Poppy Red??) around and we dumped that on my poor burnt head and it turned out I loved it.

See here we are circa 1987 ish..doing something silly at a party, but my hair is lovely!

It was red when, newly pregnant, I went down to Florida for Spring Break with Lauraliei and Ashmi.

It was red when I ran in the rain to make it to the opera on time to meet Max’s dad.

It was red.. it was red.. it was red..full of Super Extra Hold Aqua Net and Crimped with a 20 dollar Solid Gold Crimper from a Beauty Supply store..just like this AM.

Except.. then I was 18 and 19 and had not yet made the “decision” to let adoption into my life. Oh, I was on the way.. the dominoes were falling into place, but I had hope then.. it wasn’t a lost cause.. I was just totally stuck in denial (probably worrying about my hair) pretending that I wasn’t pregnant..but it wasn’t set in stone yet.. the dye was not cast…

And just for that moment this morning, I felt a brief fluttering of that girl as I gripped my hair….and I held on to her.. before my current reality grabbed me and pulled me back into the present and she slipped away again into the past.