Hair

Hair. Have you ever thought how you structure yourself and your life around your hair?

What could this mean about your personality or where you are currently at in your life, or where you have been?

Neat curly hair, wild free and don’t care hair, hair that frustrates you as it never seems a right fitting for you, straight and long hair, straight and short hair, chemically straightened hair, what colour is your hair?

Does colour structure who you are and how you conduct yourself? Professional up do hair to look corporate, compared to surfy beach blonde wavy hair? Or just the military shave because hair annoys you, hair?

I thought about it today, because yesterday I had been to the hairdresser to get my hair cut, coloured and styled. There is something about my hair that seems to connect me to who I am, or who I am currently “pretending” to be.

I have gone through a range of colours, styles and lengths over the years, hair has been an important “game changer” when my life wants to be a bit more creative, serious or at the moment, more like “me” at my core.

From the age of 15, I decided I would grab a box of bleach, at the time I thought this would be GREAT! My hair would go BLONDE! FINALLY! Something I had always wanted, after growing up with BLACK dead dark night hair. I was SO over the black hair and wanted to CHANGE. 15 was a big year for me, changes at school, my grandfather and my friend died that year, experiences I grieved over for a long time….so was that my attempt to change “me”? Through my hair?

Sure I went down the piercings route, I got 3 piercings in my lip at one point, I kind of miss them now, as I took them out for jobs to be more “presentable” (Thinking about getting something again because I love them and I’m going back to my core self!). But my hair was my definite game changer. Unhappy with a relationship? DYE MY HAIR. I often bleached my hair myself and I have literally been every single colour of the rainbow.

I even set my hair changing ways on my little brother, who at 7 years younger, may not have realised what he was getting himself into. But he did love the colour changes. Once we were away on a holiday and a woman was judging his hair colour. At the time the woman didn’t realise it was my mothers child she was talking about, so mum retorted back, “I would rather him change his hair colour than get up to any other kind of mischief”.

And that is what we grew up with.

An empowering mother. A mother who when I was 15 LAUGHED with me, because my hair turned ORANGE. She said, “Rachel, you don’t use THAT to go blonde, that’s not how it works” and taught me the right way.

I dyed my hair so many times I was told by everyone I should be a hairdresser. But that was never my route. Similar to listening to stories, I am a month of being a social worker, listening to stories and appreciating every single individual for who they are at their core.

And I probably re-dyed it black, forever destroying my hair, back and forth for many many years.

My mother was TIRED of the dye all over her bathroom mats and benches, but she let me have self expression, because obviously my grief and loss was on a high scale and communication wasn’t always available.

But I was able to be creative with ME, how I looked, what I wore, how I did my hair and what I put in my face/tattoos.

I was given self expression to just be completely me. So throughout the years I have donned mullets, shaved my head twice (very dissociative phases for me and I also raised money for charity), I had platinum blonde for my engagement, went back to warm brown for the wedding and I have finally settled, now I am a mum who forever feels shit, to ACTUALLY get my hair done professionally regularly and I am heading back to my natural colour (yes, yes very funny, I know!) and light ashy blonde layers, a space I feel it more me. Trying to be more subtle also deep, grounded and rooted.

So maybe I have finally found the middle ground? I am feeling more myself. I have healed my trauma, grief and loss, and I am moving through to another space to just be, “me” at my core.

The everlasting message out of this is, let your children/people in your life self express, they may go through phases, but if you go on the rollercoaster with them, instead of condemn them, you may indeed keep them safe from their destructive feelings and thoughts. Love the shit out of who they are at their cores.

I’m sure my mum and dad spent a lot of time worrying about where I was heading, my path seemed very destructive at times, you name it, I probably did it, but I am now a month off a degree, I have a beautiful family and a life that is far from perfect, but just the way I want it to be.