it grows back

It is important to know your hairdresser.

Every time you visit your hair stylist you take your life in your hands. Not in the manner of Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, but the life of your outward appearance or perhaps your social life is at the mercy of a person wielding a sharp blade. It is in your best interest to know who that person is.

Case in point. When I was in Grade 11 with a full head of blonde curls, the idea came to me that layers would be the best thing. Really, I thought, I don't know why I had never considered layers before. Layers would bring my hair to its fullest potential.

So who did I choose to perform this monumental task? A hairdresser from the shop my mother went to(my mother does not go there anymore). I told her exactly what I wanted. And I was so excited about my layers that unwittingly I put my full confidence in this older woman who I was sure knew what she was doing.

Half an hour later I walked out of the door with most of my beautiful curls gone, sporting a mullet. No, your eyes did not deceive you. A MULLET. A curly mullet. I was devastated.

But I learned my lesson and never entered a beauty salon for the better part of two years. My sister was thinking of pursuing a career in hair dressing and I was her willing guinea pig. Of course, you get way you pay for (or in this case, what I didn't pay for) and I think that in the period of time before my sister entered beauty school my hair was cut a little crooked. But it all worked out in the end. I got free or hugely discounted cuts, colours, streaks... you name it, I did it... except for a mohawk, that is.

Because in the end I realized that hair grows back. Your life may end (or you think it ends) for a few months, but the mullet grows out and the curls grow back. And since then I've had a cavalier attitude about my hair. Colour it red? Sure. Cut it pixie style? Done it. Had bad styles? Lived through them.

Before Christmas I was desperate to have my hair cut. It was long with a bit of the scraggles and I had taken to wearing it up all the time just so I wouldn't have to look or deal with it. Having recently moved back to the Valley I didn't really have a regular stylist anymore. The one I had before I moved was all booked up and I really was in a quandary.

But since desperate times call for desperate measures, I picked up the phone and dialed... Sears Salon...

I got to the salon and I met my hair dresser for the first time. I mentioned layers. She, I think (I hope) talked about layers in her limited English.

As this unknown and ESL hair dresser swung that black plastic cap around my neck, my nerves flickered a bit. My former mullet flashed before my eyes and I wondered if I still had a chance to make a quick escape, with my hair and my life still intact...

I stayed put. And the hair came off. Lots of it. Inches and inches. And when she gave me the okay to put my glasses back on to take a look after she was finished, I breathed an inward sigh of relief. It was fine. And even if it wasn't the most polished or most perfect hair cut I had ever received, it was okay.

After all, it always grows back.