My hair stylist gave me a great beauty tip the other day.   Blow-dry your bangs first.  I had been complaining that my bangs always stuck out at funny angles after I blow dried my hair, and Sharon, in her infinite wisdom, said, "Blow dry your bangs first.  If you wait to the end, the cowlicks have taken over, and you're done for."  I tried it.  My bangs turned out beautifully.

That isn't the only good advice I've received from Sharon.  Over the years, whenever I've been faced with stumpers like how to get my dog to come, what to buy for a graduation present, where to make contacts for a new job, I've asked Sharon.  Often she wraps a life lesson in her counsel.

On the day she gave me the bang tip, she also gave me an idea that has had me thinking since.

Actually, I had been avoiding Sharon for quite a few months previous to the big bang day.  I wanted my hair long, straight and loose around my face when I went out, if I went out.

I didn't want to go to Sharon because she would want to cut my hair into something stylish, something that got attention.  I wanted conservative.  I wanted to blend in.

My job was going badly, my youngest was getting her driver's license, my parents were looking at assisted living, my old dog's breath smelled foul, I couldn't sleep, and I exercised devoutly, O.K. semi-devoutly, but I couldn't seem to lose any weight, fat actually, if I'm honest, and I especially couldn't lose the area around my middle, that ledge of fat that hangs just below my belly button, that roll my friend, who had been a surgical technician, so indelicately revealed as the pannus. Yes, that’s what it’s called.  I looked it up, and unfortunately, that is the label that sticks in my mind as I try to see my feet.

I was feeling reserved and withdrawn, and I wanted my hair long and straight.

Low and behold, divine intervention attacked, and one night I actually slept through the night. Well, I only woke up twice, and when I got out of bed in the morning, I felt some life.  I was almost upbeat.  I looked at myself in the mirror and made an appointment for a haircut.  I thought I'd better act fast before the clouds moved in again.

I went to Sharon.  She gave me the cut, she gave me the tip about my bangs, and as I stood to go, I said I thought my shield of hair had reflected my attitude.  I was depressed.  I didn't want to notice or have anyone else notice that I was midlife and hadn't become all I could be. I said my hair had helped me hide.

Sharon said, "Maybe, but a lot of women our age want hair that takes us back to a time when we were happy.  I have women who come in with pictures of themselves in their wedding gowns twenty-five years ago.  They want those haircuts because they want that time back."

I suddenly thought back to the last time I had long straight hair.  I was in my mid-twenties, my kids were little and a joy, I had started my first teaching job and loved it, we were building a new house, I read, I wrote, I volunteered.  We had a new puppy.  My parents were the age I am now.  I wondered if my mother had ever wanted "wedding hair."

I looked at Sharon, and it hit me.  My eyes welled with tears.  "You are a genius," I said. I realized I did want that time back.  I wanted all those possibilities again. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby, "We beat against the waves ceaselessly born into the past."  We do, indeed, unless that is, we make ourselves take the leaps: quit the job, hike the Grand Canyon, learn another language, go for the new hair.  Makes ourselves do these things instead of waiting for divine intervention, waiting for inspiration that may never come. 

I hugged Sharon.  I felt new.

I got up this morning, did my bangs first, and styled my sexy new hair.  I went to my bedroom, pulled on my turtleneck and looked at myself in the mirror.  Note to self:

Ask Sharon how to negotiate the tight tunnel of a turtleneck after blow drying, bangs first. I can't imagine where that will take us.