I am partially to blame for this.
Rebecca wanted to color her hair so we were looking at ideas and wandered onto a website that featured not-your-usual-hair-colors, i.e; pink, green, blue, purple. Some of the dye jobs were not so great, some were quite outlandish, all were colorful and a surprising number were subtle enough that the wearers appeared to be actual wage-earners in the community; Halloween hair had crept into mainstream.
All my kids have gorgeous hair and Rebecca has had the most surprising ideas about hers. Several years ago I was at a conference and got this message from William: “Rebecca cut her hair off”. Ummm…..OK….I am a thousand miles away…..and working in oncology has made me not panic about hair issues. Apparently she had stayed up late watching “GI Jane” and when the movie ended about 0100, cutting her hair a la Demi Moore seemed like a good idea. Life’s lessons #1: “Fatigue clouds judgement”. The next day she took herself over to her friends at The Beauty Zone and they trimmed up what they could.
It was an interesting look best described as: “Edward Scissorhands: The early years” and I was secretly relieved when she shaved it all off and rocked the Sinead O’Connor look the rest of the summer. I swear, sometimes she is fearless; but mercifully has since left the hair-styling to the professionals and her hair has now grown out to about shoulder-length.
“Your hair, only better” is what we decided on and apparently that meant something different to each of us, as I discovered a few days later via text messaging:
R: I am getting my hair colored at The Beauty Zone today.
C: OK. Do something like we talked about.
Several hours later….
R: Do you like this? (Followed by a pic of multicolored tresses)
It was rather fetching and even though it wasn’t what we had (I thought) agreed upon I figured it would do, so I tried to call her and tell her that. No answer, but another text arrived:
R: Tell me if you like it first.
C: Yes, I like it. Pick up the phone.
Flashback to when the kids were in their late teens; opting for forgiveness rather than permission; stretching their wings; making decisions the results of which they would perhaps have to live with the rest of their lives. In truth, Rebecca seemed to have made some progress; she had been plateaued in early teens for a number of years; now I knew where things stood. This was doable.
Maika, her hairdresser, told me Rebecca had wanted her entire head blue and purple; she has our backs and talked her out of that and into something more suitable: Mermaid Hair. It really does take a village and there is a special place in heaven for the folks at The Beauty Zone.
Sarah and William were a bit shocked at Rebecca’s behavior but when I explained my theory of her current developmental level and that at that stage they had all done things of which I had not necessarily approved and the world had not ended, Sarah summed it up nicely: “Yeah…..some of us got tattoos and a cousin got pregnant so this is no big deal.”
Exactly.
And one day if I am bold enough, I might try Mermaid Hair, too.
