Red-y For the World!

I gave up. 

I tried. I really did. 

But I gave up. 

I went back to my red hair today. 

When the pandemic hit and everything shut down I decided that I would just grow it all out, go back to my natural color. Maybe even grow my hair a little longer again. 

But...

Menopause.

At least that's what I am going with. My hair used to grow at a scary pace. It's why cutting it all off and then growing it all back out long enough to donate was never that daunting of a task. It would take a couple of years tops to get the length it needed, from ears to mid back, while still getting regular trims to keep it super healthy. No big deal. 

But this? 

From March to today it grew maybe, MAYBE an inch and a half. MAYBE. And not everywhere. Some places grew a little more than that, maybe two inches, some places grew a lot less than that, like a half inch. But average is 1/2 inch a month so it should have been around four inches for a normal person and six for me. But nope...

And then as it finally got long enough for me to see what the color is now...

Not my favorite. 

Sara tried to show me a couple of months ago when we were first allowed back into the salons. She rinsed out as much of the red as my hair would release then added a temporary tone to it to bring it around to close to the natural shade. I hated it. I mean HATED it. But I convinced myself that I hated it because it was different than what I had gotten used to. And I hated it because it wasn't showing the gray because of the temporary color wash, and I was pretty sure I finally had enough gray for that to be the first thing you would notice. 

Nope. 

I still love the gray that I have. It's very silvery and shiny and just gorgeous. But I need it to be like 60% of my hair color to pull it off and it's like 25%. So all it does it make the brown around it look dull. Bleh.

And since my hair wasn't really growing all I was getting was the thickness back, but not the length. So my head started to resemble a beach ball. 

I've gained a pretty significant amount of weight and lost a lot of muscle over this time period so I really don't need to add a beach ball head to the equation. 

So I tried. 

I tried to not care. 

I tried to not be vain. 

I tried to tell myself that it was silly to even think of such things. 

But I gave up.

I salute those of you that have discovered an inner anti-diva during this time. But that's just not me. I mean, I've never been super high maintenance but apparently the parts that I have, I am holding on to. 

Yesterday I put on makeup for the first time in awhile. I did a little more shaping to my eyebrows that I had been trying to go 6 months without plucking to see if they would fill in nicely; at 5 months they are thicker, but there is a dividing line between my "normal" shape and what grew in so I looked like I had two lines of brows. I shaped a bit of it and filled in the rest with a brow pencil and wand. 

And like I said, I had Sara color my hair back to red today, it will take a few times to get it all back, the bottom that still had some of the old red is different than the root area that is starting fresh. I sort of look like I have low lights in with it. It still looks good. So I'm happy about that. I also gave up on the idea of growing it out, as it's not really growing and had her cut it back to a shorter style. Not as short as it was pre-pandemic but with more edges and layers and jags than the beach ball head I had going. I like it to move, or at least look like it just finished moving. 

Now that Tig is better the sick room was reconverted back to a gym so that will all start up again. I'm realistic that my weight is not going to change much in November and December, but I can start the process again at least. I know I need to do something because I was talking to a friend who has been very very sick and lost a drastic amount of weight over the past few months and it triggered my, so...how do I get deathly ill and lose weight like that? inner demon voice. When the skinny bitch demon starts talking I need to listen. Not to her, not exactly. But I do need to pay attention because if she takes over I end up getting comments from you all like, So...you should probably stop losing weight now, don't you think?

And no. 

I never think that. 

So...

I gave up.

I am not going to be comfortable being heavy.

I am not going to be comfortable not having cute hair.

I am not going to be comfortable not wearing dark red lipstick.

I am not going to be comfortable wearing soft clothes all the ti...

Actually, wait, yeah that part still rocks. So I will be wearing my lounge pants and soft shirts (probably switched out for snuggly sweaters here soon) and I'll be doing it with a light dusting of makeup on my face and super cute red hair in place. 

And I feel so much better about it all than I did a few days ago.

Apparently giving up works for me.