The Highlights of my Day

This whole "Living Out Loud" and "The Year of Me" is about the esoteric, the outward, the superficial, the gradual makeover from this to that. I was going to wait until the end to experiment with hair, makeup, clothing changes, etc., until I had lost a substantial amount of weight, and then changed my mind. Why wait to have fun? Why put off the playful, adventurous stuff? Must I "earn" it? Heh, I've paid that price several times over in advance, thank you very much.

For the past month, each and every day, I have been painfully aware of my graying hair. Granted, it's not a lot of gray, but it's highly visible (to me.) I made this my Facebook profile pic last month and while folks were all "nice pic" and "you look so young," every time I looked at it all I could see was the silver screaming at me.  

So yesterday I went to Bella Via Salon down in Edgewater, MD and decided to take the plunge into the world of hair color and highlights. For those of you who have been doing this for years for fun (not to cover gray, but just for the fun of it) OMG are you NUTS? You do this to yourself on purpose for fun? Well, there were parts I liked. The coffee was tasty. The conversation was nice. And I really liked the "unveiling." But between arrival and departure there was quite a process! If you've never experienced this, let me share my experience with you.

I arrived to a warm welcome complete with pastries and gourmet coffee.  (I didn't eat the yummy cake though.) Then I was seated, and Chrissy, who is awesome, began the process of foiling little strands of the hair to create highlights of caramel.

After I was properly highlighted, she put in an all-over rinse called "Shades" which is not permanent (less damage to the hair) and which makes it so I won't have roots showing. This was to cover up any little grays not covered by the highlights. 

Then she put a shower cap thingy over my head and sent me over to the extra terrestrial space center to beam me up to the mothership. It was pretty darned hot on my head, I guess because the foil is a conductor. Either that or they were trying to exfiltrate all my knowledge'n stuff.

After that, they took the foil out and the shampooer shampooed. I think that's my favorite part. A nice head massage with the warm water. I could have taken a nap there!

Finally, Chrissy cut off about 3 to 3 1/2 inches to give me a little bounce. My hair really was too long. I was on a mission to get "hair down to my a$$" then decided that at 45 years old, that window may have already slammed shut.  ;-)

So a cut and a blow dry, and out the door I went.....sporting some sexy new highlights and a whole lotta attitude!!!  I think I gave myself whiplash tossing my hair back with my neck muscles all afternoon (hehe). I love the highlights, for sure. They are subtle and fun. But what I love even more is:

1. That I really believed I was worth "allowing" myself to do this, and

2. How I FEEL with the little bits of gray gone.

If you're on the fence, whether male or female, about "washing the gray right outta your hair" I'd said buy one of those at home temporary rinses and try it. You might love it so much you get it done "for real" like I just did! I'm going to play with my hair, and cut, and color, all year until I find the perfect cut and color.  Because I can.  ♥♥♥