HAIR. CUSS..MUTTER....CUSS. Is this Menopause? Seriously??
She washed her hair once every three days. That was the good news. Whoopee!
She bent down and swept up the tumbleweeds of tangled hair that had fallen and drifted into the corners of her bathroom floor. What the heck had happened to her thick, shiny locks? It seemed the good soil that held her roots to her scalp had turned to sand, and now her hair was falling out. She muttered and cussed under her breath as she combed her hair back from her forehead, revealing the broken, fine, baby sprigs that were in a fight for survival. She took a deep, worried breath as she examined her receding hairline. Crap, maybe she needed bangs, she thought, to hide the broken pieces? She hated bangs. Cuss, mutter…cuss, mutter…
If hair had Seasons, she was experiencing them all right now. All except for Spring of course, there was no new hair growth. Nothing was blooming. Her Season of Summer was hot and brutal; and had dried her hair to a frizzy, over-heated, hormonal dull. Fall, once her favorite of all the Seasons, was getting on her nerves. She had had enough. Fall was lingering way too long. The leaves, rather her once lovely strands, would not stop falling out! The gray of her Winter hair had collided with Fall, and was becoming grayer by the day. Her roots were almost white. The grey growth was sporadic, unpredictable…and ugly. She didn’t want to color her hair, but she couldn’t stop! This “getting older” thing was happening way too fast.
Hair coloring was fun no more. She remembered going to the salon, not so long ago, and selecting a funky new color to try on her hair; red, plum, or pink, just for fun. Just to give her a “new look”. Sadly, she admitted those days were gone. Her essential haircare arsenal was now loaded with multiple boxes of root touchup kits to get her through to her next visit with her hair stylist…her hero. God bless that gifted woman who could color, condition, cut, and dry her hormone infested mop to a soft, shiny, bouncy younger self.
In the privacy of her own little salon (bathroom) she perched her glasses on her nose, leaned forward over the sink and peered in the mirror. She brushed and coated her roots with store bought hair dye, cringing the whole time. She stopped periodically to tug her hair, making sure the chemicals weren’t causing her locks to fall out in clumps. She swore that she could see it breaking right before her eyes. When did hair dye become so stressful?
Wait. Pray. Shower.
Washing out the color, shampooing.. conditioning; the shower was where she experienced the peak of her Fall hair season. Relaxing shower days were replaced with the dread of how much hair she was going to have to wipe off the shower walls. The handful of hair that she pulled and unraveled from her wet fingers left her anxious and antsy to inspect her head in the mirror. No bald spots would equal success…and relief.
She braced herself for menopause. Her body was changing, her was hair thinning, and she was at “that age”. Certainly, this was a sign that menopause, her “change of life”, was approaching. How could this be? Inside she felt 35…on the outside, it was becoming rapidly apparent that she wasn’t. She thought about NEVER having to buy tampons and maxi-pads again…and she laughed. Bring it on!, she thought. The sooner it comes the sooner it will be gone…right? She could only hope.
But just for today.. one more hair washing was behind her. Before her lay three glorious day of shower capped bathing…whoopee!
