The story behind the story...

Have I told you I have dyed my hair pink? One of my Christmas presents was a box of pink hair dye – Rebel Raspberry it is called.

It’s supposed to wash out in 6 to 8 washes but I did it just before New Year my blonder/pale grey/white strands are still reasonably vibrant if not quite the same shade as the girl on the box.

It’s been causing a bit of a stir. People are divided.

Youngest son immediately came out on the “I don’t like it” Team. He said it is NOT the colour God intended! 

However most people said it looked great until a quite forthright friend challenged them the other day.

“Honestly do you really like Sarah’s hair?”

Opinions were grudgingly swayed from positive to negative. So later that day I sought out the more artistic fraternity for their views, particularly another woman in our church whose hair is also pink, but sometimes green or even blue!

Several thoughts occurred to me…

1. Often people just say what they think you want to hear, originally apart from youngest son everyone “loved” my bold hair colour.
2. How easy it is to follow other people and agree with the most forthright person in a crowd. The only other person who openly said she didn’t like it to begin with soon got others to admit their reservations.
3. Why is it so important to find seek out favourable opinions anyway?

I know for a fact Andrew would have HATED it. I would have NEVER even tried it had he still been alive.

Although I have occasionally dyed my hair in the past it has always been more natural shades and always a wash out variety. I’ve only just started experimenting again since he died and I feel like a kid in a sweet shop presented with a whole range of possibilities to try! 

Maybe I am still in a reinvention stage, figuring out how I want to behave as a “widow”. Do I want to shock and challenge other? Maybe. Is this me rebelling? A mid-life crisis perhaps – well I am 45 next month – when does mid-life actually begin?

Although I now find myself on my own I still have a need to have my choices validated, I need people to say they like my hair, my clothes, my writing, what I’ve done with the house, the list goes on and on.

Andrew told me every week when I dressed up for church “you look nice today”. OK so it was always prefaced by the phrase “hang on a minute…” as if he had suddenly remembered what he should say but I knew deep down he truly meant it.

Now I have to find other people I trust and rely on their opinions or better still stand on my own two feet and have the courage of my own conviction that I am doing alright! 

As I’ve said it isn’t just about the colour of my hair but all aspects of my life.

So what do I actually think about my hair?

My first thought was - what have I done now? Then people said they liked it, my confidence increased and it grew on me.

I worried at the start about how I would feel as the colour faded, would it look washed out and somehow a bit tacky? In reality now it is not such a shocking colour I love it all the more, it’s become easier to colour co-ordinate my clothes to match; honestly my new red dress with bright pink hair just didn’t work!

Despite the murmurs of dissent or perhaps even because of them I shall be dyeing my hair pink again. I might even get better at it and it won’t look so patchy. Better still I’ll ask my friend who bought me the dye in the first place to give me a hand – I partly regret not having the patience to wait for her help last time.

But jumping in with both feet is becoming my trademark setting.

Life is short and once again I have gained the confidence to say this is me and this is how I want to do things. You may not like it and that’s fine, just let me play – you never know one day I might just grow out of it!

As for my Five Sentence Fiction, the girl in the story isn’t exactly me but the line between fact and fiction is a blurred one!