We all (at least the ladies) know what a bad hair day is, right? I have them regularly, like right now. Today I’m waiting for guests to come and play bridge, and I sit here with bad hair. Really bad. I even need a haircut. Well, into the shower, wash, wash, rinse, rinse, condition, blow dry, poof – “Good Hair Day!
But what is a “Good Hair Day?” Really? I recall my wedding day (both of them) and one of the main priorities was that my hair look perfect! Not close, or nearly so, but perfect. If that meant hours at a hairdresser and a bag over my head until the event, so be it. There is something about hair that we women obsess over. Ask my daughters – I nag about their hair all the time.
At a conference years ago a black woman said that white women obsess about weight and black women obsess about hair. I disagree. I think women of any color obsess about both of them! The scale may just tip a bit more to one side than the other for some. Skinny women with perfect hair don’t obsess about much of anything, but perfect women like that are robots. Fat women with rotten hair obsess about both and then there is everyone in between and you can place yourself wherever you want on the continuum.
I wonder however, if we would know a “Good Hair Day,” when we had one. You see, a “Good Hair Day,” is as much about how we feel about ourselves as how our hair actually looks. I have had one of the best hair days in my life lying in the ICU after having major surgery and surviving it. I know my hair looked like hell, my face was bloated beyond recognition due to the eight hours of surgery lying face down on the gurney, and the hospital gown did nothing to enhance the blob of body lying in that bed connected to a dozen kinds of tubes. But….it was a “Good Hair Day!”
I think too that a “Good Hair Day” is also about how good we feel when we say or do something that makes someone else feel better or live a better life. Or how we feel when we’ve done something to help ease the aches and pains and sorrows of the world around us. For Christmas last year and this year, I gave several bee hives, with instructions and all the parts including the bees, to families in third world countries to help them earn a living. I felt good about that. It was another “Good Hair Day.”
Have a “Good Hair Day,” even if you are having a bad hair day!