I was born with dark brown hair. All my life I wanted to have blonde hair. As a child, I longed to have the light-colored curls of so many girls that I knew.
When I was a teen, my friends were spraying “Sun-In” in their blonde and light brown hair to achieve the chunky sun-kissed highlighted strands. I made the mistake of trying it only once and wound up with patches of a strange mousey color all over my head.
During my younger and single days, I always envied my friends that seemed to attract all the men with a simple flip of their golden long locks. I seemed to fade into the background among my glowing-haired friends while my dark brown hair hid me like a cape.
As I grew older, I had my share of highlights but could never really stray that far from my natural very dark brown color. Not only was it espresso brown, but it did not have one ounce of body or curl to it.
Once spiral perms were out, it was a real struggle. It wasn’t until Demi Moore made the chin length straight bob from Indecent Proposal the “it” hairstyle that I really felt like I had something to work with.
When women complain about their crazy curly hair, I wonder why they cannot appreciate the hair that I have always envied. Hair like the color of sand seems so natural, so flowing, so lovely. Yet it does always seem that people wish for the opposite of what they have.
The other day I was out running errands and was waiting to pay for my items. As I waited in line, I was checking things off my “to do” list when I heard a woman behind me say, “Your hair is so pretty. I love the color.”
I turned around to say thank you and would have continued with how I always wished that it was actually blonde, when I noticed that the woman talking to me had a beautiful smile, friendly eyes and wore a colorful scarf around her own bald head. That day, I smiled and genuinely said, “Thank you.”
Sometimes, we need to be reminded by others that we should appreciate what we have, just the way it is. The people that have more fun are the ones that make the effort to be fun.
Edited by Jody Smith