Selfie

Herself speaks.

I cut my hair yesterday.

I reached a level of personal dissatisfaction, coupled with wintertime blues, exacerbated by a workplace Christmas party in which I looked at the lovely long and wavy tresses of all of the other women in the office and realized that my hair would never be Like That. And so I decided that Action Needed To Be Taken.

The regular attempts to disguise the (not overly numerous, in truth) gray hairs that I have, are wearisome. While I enjoy having auburn hair, I feel a bit as though I am lying. This is not my true color. And I am over 50 -- who am I fooling? This is not really me.

What is really me?

I asked my talented stylist how we could go about moving back to my natural hair color -- whatever it may be -- and to bring the grays back into the mix without having a mouse-colored result. He added some cooler-toned highlights to blend with the outgrowth of the grays, and applied a gloss to ensure I would have some healthy shine as the color changes. The new color is good, I think.

I also decided to have the stylist cut several inches off. My very fine hair does not fare well with excessive length; it weighs everything down, and becomes rather limp and bedraggled. I need to acknowledge that I will never have glorious thick cascading hair. Shorter is the way for me to go. The truth hurts, sometimes.

The stylist did a very nice job, as he always does, despite the limitations of my natural hair. It looks good today. I'll do what I can to recreate the look going forward. Just a round brush and blow-dry, I have been told. Perhaps I will be able to manage.
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I posted a picture of the haircut on Facebook later in the day, in the hopes that seeing my hair the way it is now each time I open the app, will help me adjust to what I really do look like. Can I accept myself for the way that I am? Perhaps. I battle so much internal criticism.

Even assuming I learn to like how I look with the New Hair, there are other -- larger -- struggles. I am what one might charitably call a Big Girl. It would be very generous to call me curvaceous. It would be more accurate to call me Overweight. I carry extra pounds in my cleavage and around my middle as well. It's not particularly attractive, and I am very aware of my failure to meet conventional beauty standards.

Being overweight is a visible admission of my lack of self-control when it comes to carbohydrates. I'm embarrassed. And angry with myself. I feel... lesser, somehow, even though there is more of me.

I'm taking steps toward change. I do work out, and I am trying to watch what I eat (although holiday season, with its multitude of cookies, is defeating my dietary efforts a bit). To add complexity, I'm in mid-winter-survival-mode because of Social Obligations and Lack of Sunlight and Please Help I Need A Break From Everything. That makes it all a bit harder. After the turn of the new year, though, I'll gather myself up and deploy inner fortitude to try harder. Patience is key.

In the meanwhile, the question remains: can I accept myself, just as I am?

We shall see.

At least, I think, my hair looks nice.
It took over a dozen tries to take this one tolerable photo
for reference as I try to become thinner.

Perhaps someday, I will be content with how all of me looks.