In days of yore

When I was little, I really wanted curly hair.

You don’t understand, I REALLY wanted curly hair.

I had long, straight hair and thought it was the most boring thing I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter that people often were astounded by my hair, were always touching it unbidden, and I was once chased down a hallway at a nursing home by an old lady in a wheelchair because she wanted to see my hair. (Actually, that terrified me. I was about 7, maybe, and I’m not a big fan of nursing homes to this day.) Check out this pic of me on Christmas morning as a child. (You should be aware my hair is a bit of a mess being Christmas morning and I was all about those Cabbage Patch Kids.)

The point is that I have nice hair, especially then. It was long and straight and I didn’t have to do anything to it to make it straight. And even today, my hair is healthy, strong, shiny. People comment on it when I’m getting a haircut. But still, it’s straight.

And I wanted curly hair. Girls with curly hair just seemed so beautiful. And this was the 80s, so perms were big and every girl I saw had curly-ish hair. But I wanted those natural bouncy curls. Pink sponge rollers only left my hair limp and damp, since you were supposed to put the rollers in while your hair was wet, sleep on them (?!), and take them out to reveal dry, bouncy curls the next day. That never happened to me. Hot rollers worked, but the curls would fall out within an hour, usually. Curls seemed elusive unless I got a perm, and I was about 5, so that surely wasn’t happening.

Then, one day, my dad told me (jokingly) that if you drank the fizz on sodas it would make your hair curly. Finally, the thing I’d been looking for! But have you ever tried to drink just the fizz on sodas? Um, yeah, you have to be fast. You have to down some of it immediately after the pour, which is all we ever got because drinking a whole soda yourself was not allowed. At least when Mom was around. Grandma Ruby, well, that was a different story.

So, for years, there I was trying to drink fizz in sodas and anxiously awaiting the day when it would finally work. I was a little disappointed when it didn’t. And heartbroken when I figured out that had just been one of my dad’s jokes.

The moral of this story? I really don’t know. I was reminded of it when I was getting ready for work today and put my hair into a ponytail. I know it’s not the best look for me. I’ve seen my pictures from Boston. But I don’t care today! Ahem. . .anyway, there I was at 31, getting ready for work, thinking how cool it would be if my hair had just a touch of curl.

I guess the moral is that there’s a part of us that always wants what we don’t have. But the adult in me knows the truth: the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. So, be thankful for what you have today. Even if you’d still like your hair to be curly. . . just once in awhile.