Claiming Personal Control
I love the feeling of deciding to just dive into what you want while blithely ignoring the consequences.
It can sometimes be a horrible idea, but the diving part is super fun.
For a long time, I've wanted to really, truly, with bleach treatment and all, dye my hair blue. From a logical standpoint, it makes no sense. Blue hair is a pain to maintain. Blue hair isn't ideal for musical theatre performers. Blue hair could be off-putting to some readers on social media. Blue hair would mean changing out all of my author pictures to match my new personal brand (for more on branding, check out this week's episode of A Book and A Dream.)
But I knew blue hair would make me happy.
See, beyond thinking it would be pretty and enjoying the occasional sideways glances from people who think I'm an adult delinquent, having blue hair would be a choice I'm making for my body. Me shaping my body into what I want it to be.
As someone with a whole list of fancy auto-immune diseases, I don't often get to make my body do what I want it to do.
I turn bright red for no reason.
I can't go out in the sun.
My joints swell.
My lungs freak out.
The list goes on and on.
Having blue hair is a way of snatching back a bit of the control ripped away by my body trying to destroy me...literally.
Would I rather have skin that doesn't randomly turn bright red? Sure.
But that's not a possibility. So mermaid hair it is.
And I am loving it.
