Beauty: It’s In The Mind

It’s a funny thing… these little things that interconnect themselves so neatly when we’re not looking carefully enough. I love it.

Since I dyed my hair purple (or more precisely ‘Ultra Violet’ as the box states) I’ve grown to love all the varied reactions I get from people. It’s an amazing feeling to feel like you’re being perceived by others how you want to be perceived, like they can really see the you that’s on the inside instead of what we’re often stuck with on the outside.

That in itself is a long topic so I’ll move on to my point before this post turns into a twenty page tirade though those are really quite fun as well.

Sometimes people walk up to me and ask me how I got my hair such a vibrant color, others ask me why on earth I’d do something like that to myself, and others still decide to comment on the actual colors I’m displaying since I’ve recently picked up a habit of wearing my bright lime green hoodie because of the way it offsets the color in my hair. Some people love the colors I choose and how wacky and far from the norm they seem. Some people think I should, and I quote, ‘grow up’ and how could my husband stand to be seen with me and other such nonsense. By the way, my husband absolutely loves my hair. He’s happy if I’m happy and so long as I’m not spending gregarious amounts of cash on things to alter the surface when everything beneath it is plenty beautiful in his opinion. *grins cutely*

Anyways, yesterday my Hubby, my sis (who is sporting neon or as the box says ‘Shocking Blue’ hair) and I went grocery shopping because I’ve recently learned how to make all kinds of new things thanks to a weekend at my adoptive mom’s house. The moment we walked in Hunny saw a lady he knew from his old job and they quickly fell into a conversation about some issues that were still going on. Kei and I just stood around, observing and listening like we usually do when we don’t have a whole lot to add to a conversation or we’re just as content listening.

Seconds later this elder woman, I haven’t the heart to call her elderly or old in any sense of the word for her personality, walked up to us with a huge grin on her face and said “I love your hair!” We smiled and thanked her as she walked past thinking that was the end of that.

It wasn’t.

She came back with one of her friends and started asking us how we got our hair the color it was, what dye we used, what others colors we’d gone, and where the dye could be picked up. She wanted to know if we used more than one color on my sis cause she has these really nice highlights and what reactions we generally got from people. She was so vibrant and alive about it.

As she was leaving she said “You gotta be brave and stand out from the crowd.” With that she raised her fist in the air and proclaimed “Live free.” and then left just as suddenly as she’d shown up. Kei and I looked at each other in a moment of silence that followed after our raucous agreement and we broke down into giggles. We were always talking about th kinds of old ladies we wanted to be when we get to be that age and here this awesome woman had come along and proven just what a reality that would be. :D It was awesome.

You’re only as old as you act.

You’re only as beautiful as you think you are.

And people will only ever know you, or really want to know you, if you stand up in one sense or another and say “Here I am. This is me. Don’t like it? Deal with it.” As the Tao says, there is a time to be flexible as the river and a time to be as strong as bamboo- bend when you gotta but never break.