The story of my great hair, a very serious topic

Ok, so while I am an admitted fashion junkie, I am not much of a beauty junkie - I generally don’t splurge on super high-end hair or skin care products, I’m a huge fan of Benefit and Chanel make-up but don’t obsess over it, and - my beauty blogger friends will probably keel over and die when they read this but, I completely skim over the beauty sections in fashion and lifestyle magazines. If it has an interesting bottle I might pay it some fleeting attention, but otherwise… I don’t know. It’s just not my thing. Clothes and shoes and bags are my thing.

BUT! For the last few years, I’ve had awesome hair. Great hair. Really effing good hair. I'm now a believer of proper haircare and maintenence. I have drunk the Kool-Aid, and it is good. This was not always the case, though, and it took a major life tragedy for me to get here. Would you like to know how I came about it, readers (reader)? I think you do.

It goes back about 12 years. I distinctly remember getting ready for a party – most likely with the drumline, because really, what else did I do? – back in high school with my friend Kyleen. Kyleen had gorgeous, thick blond hair that would do anything she wanted and stay styled all day and all night, even in the West Texas heat. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky. My baby-fine blond hair would NOT hold a style for anything, and yet I dutifully washed it with volumizing products and painstakingly styled it every day with the same disappointing results. As I was slaving away with the curling iron, Kyleen turned and said to me, “Meg, you know it’s not going to stay styled. Why even bother?”

Fast forward about five years to college when I lived in muggy, humid Austin and was still observing this same daily, soul-sucking routine. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? Or something? Right. And yet. I curled, styled, sprayed, and… died a little inside every day.

Then I moved to Chicago. And for Two! More! Years! continued this madness before finally giving up on my hair ever looking the way I wanted it to. It sucked. But something was going on, something behind-the-scenes if you will, that would change this torture for me forEVAR!

It was late 2005, and I had just completed my first hellacious year of attending grad school full-time. And working full-time with a demanding internship at a financial PR firm. I was making $350 a week. Pretty stressful, but generally palatable and coming-of-age, right? I forgot one detail, though. I was supporting my alcoholic boyfriend while he was secretly seeing another woman.

Secretly, that is, until I found some emails between them and the charade was up. He never gave me the full story, but I used his sad addiction to my advantage by reading their text messages while he was passed out night after night and filled in the blanks myself.

It would be a total understatement to say I was devastated. Ruined. Changed. I stopped going out, stopped having fun. I would cry randomly in public. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I stopped washing my hair every day. I just didn’t care.

One of her messages to him read, “You make me feel young and sparkling.” Young. And Sparkling. I was enraged. I must have stopped breathing for a good two minutes. I think I actually threw up. I wanted to draft a reply, one that said, “See how young you feel after seeing an alcoholic for three years!” and sparkling? Hard for a girl to feel sparkling that hadn’t washed her hair in THREE DAYS.

But…my hair? That I hadn’t washed in three days? … looked GREAT. It was bouncy, piece-y and didn’t fall as soon as I stepped outside. You see? I was learning one of life’s most valuable lessons. The lesson I’m referring to, of course, is that a woman with fine hair should never wash her hair everyday! Fine hair needs that build-up of product and oil to maintain a style. I had lived my whole life up until that point not knowing that essential piece of information!

I never sent that vindictive reply. I pulled myself together and soldiered on with my life. I graduated with honors and landed a great job. Then I got an even better job. Eventually, my little wounded heart healed and I got an amazing boyfriend too. I took the high road (if the high road means still bitterly blogging about it two years later. Ok. We’ll call it the almost high road) and left the young and sparkling assholes in the dust.

But I think I’ll keep the hair, thanks.