Some of you may already know, but I recently did something a
little crazy. Well, crazier than my
normal crazy.
I dyed my hair pink.
All of it.
Bright pink.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Here’s the rest of the story.
See, life is hard. It’s
true, there’s no way around it. Life is
not going to be easy. But that doesn’t
mean it can’t be fun. While there are a
million different things going on in my life, how I choose to react and feel
about those events is completely under my control. And I firmly believe that even though life
is hard it is also meant to be a time of great joy.
Somewhere along the way, a few months ago, maybe longer, I
lost sight of that last fact. I was
worried, stressed, sad, frustrated and every other negative emotion you can
think of. But I was forgetting to
balance it out with anything good and wonderful. Yes, those parts were still there I was just
ignoring them because I wanted to be grumpy.
One day I decided enough was enough.
I learned several years ago that adding touches of fun
colors to my hair gave me a boost and made me giggle and remember that life was
fun. So, when it came time to re-do my
color I looked at that bottle of pink stuff, thought really hard about the way
I’d been feeling, and dumped the whole darn thing on my head.
It’s different. I
look like I think I’m still a teenager.
I get some weird looks. I give
myself some of those weird looks. But, here’s the thing. When I look in the mirror now I forget to
judge myself by the bags under my eyes, the lack of makeup, the spaces in my
teeth, or the ghastly amount of weight I’ve gained in recent years.
Instead, I look in the mirror and laugh out loud. I think “you
are one crazy, awesome lady!” and walk away giggling to enjoy my still rough
day with a song in my heart.
While I certainly don’t recommend everyone dying their hair
pink, (what if you’re not a fan of pink?) I certainly do recommend finding a
way to remember what you love most about yourself every day. The world will give you plenty of
opportunities to focus on the other stuff, find your own brand of craziness
that makes the rest of it all okay and dance with it daily.
Life is just better that way.
