truth

“Impossible”, I thought. It would be impossible to find a good hairstylist in time. It was a week before my big fifteenth birthday bash and I had yet to find anyone who I thought capable of cutting and coloring my hair. Now to truly understand the velocity of the situation at hand you must first know the magnitude of what this party meant to me. During that year I was not only but a lowly freshman at a new high school, but also the new kid in town. This year had been quite an interesting one filled with: twists, turns, fun, highs, lows, and whatever else you may think to throw in that jumbled frenzy called freshman year. Well, it was March and I had made it through freshman year not only in one piece but also with some amazing friends. This party was not only one to celebrate fifteen years of life, but also to show gratitude to my friends for being there. Also, of course to celebrate freshman year soon coming to an end!

Well now that you know just how much this party (sleepover-to be exact) meant to me, I can continue to tell you what a pain it was to find a stylist. My mother told me of a salon she had heard of. It was a trendy little place in the Castro, that apparently left everyone quite satisfied. I decided to do a bit of research and came upon some very positive reviews, many of which went out to a particular stylist. I read all her reviews each one more spectacular than the last, and with them my confidence skyrocketed. I Had found my stylist! Of course I immediately called to make an appointment and as I did I felt tons of pre-party stress instantly leaving me.

I suppose it was somewhat ignorant of me to assume I had actually found the perfect hairstylist, as I proudly and giddily walked up the steps to the trendy loft-like salon clutching the clip outs of exactly what I wanted my hair to look like. As I waited patiently in the comfy reception area, I stroked and observed my soft jet black hair. It had taken me what seemed like forever to grow it past my shoulders; a length which I intended to keep, and this particularly dark shade which I had chosen about two months earlier looked striking against my fair complexion and blue eyes. Additionally it was a color that didn’t make me look like something out of Scream when I didn’t have the time to straighten it. In all honesty there wasn’t anything wrong with my hair, but perhaps one of my tragic flaws is my chronic boredom, a problem which constantly provoked me to change my hair color- and this was no exception. I should have known there was something wrong when the stylist asked me to blow dry my own hair before applying the color, but I felt so confident that I didn’t think twice about it.

Four hours had passed before the she spun me around, and happily said “Done!” I stared into the mirror, with total and utter disbelief. Within the course of four hours that woman had without warning, single handedly crafted my demise, or so it seemed in my eyes. I tried to stroke it…Straw. Accordingly, a damaged piece of hair fell out. It was as if someone had declared nuclear warfare on my head, and what remained were not the soft luscious strands I previously knew, but instead short brittle wisps. I gave the stylist a look of disbelief, half horrified and half delusional and hopeful that perhaps, maybe in some sort of crazy turn of events she was in fact, not done at all, and perhaps with her hands, shears, and some sort of miracle product, would continue to transform my hair into exactly what I had wanted, no maybe even better! But that hope lasted all but five seconds before it faded away and I came back to reality, realizing she was staring blankly back at me… My hopes were in vain.

The flow of tears accumulating in my eyes was inevitable, so I made a quick dash to the bathroom and in the typical teenage-crisis like manner started sobbing uncontrollably. How could this have happened to me? I had done everything; From cutting out the cutesy pictures, to my inability to stop searching until I found a stylist praised by reviews, and now the day before my party, all I had to show for it was a bang-cut worthy of its own horror production company. The woman was a madman with the scissors and I had been her unsuspecting victim.

I didn’t sleep much that night-I refused to, instead I cried, in my mind playing back the events that had taken place earlier. I played back the terror and disbelief, I played back the miserable ride home which was accompanied by my moms desperate attempts to console me but most of all I played events that had yet to happen, the struggle that I would have to face the very next day.

My mother woke me up early the next morning and as I groaned, part sleepiness and part remembrance of the events from the previous night, she ignored me though and would have none of it as she chirped optimistically about the party. I was too weak, and too depressed to care. Then my mother said something I would never have expected; she told me to get dressed, we were going to try fixing my hair. I stared blankly at her. I was about to tell her how that could never happen, how despite her obviously good intentions, my hair had been so damaged, so obscenely cut that even beginning to try to fix it would just be adding insult to an already hopeless injury. I didn’t though, I’m not sure exactly what my reasons were but I decided to humor her.

Although it was early, the hair salon my mother frequented was already filled. They did have time to squeeze me in though and for that I was thankful. I met my stylist, an optimistic woman who smiled sympathetically at me. After assessing the damage she quickly went to work. She did all she could: cutting off damaged pieces, trying to adjust my bangs and doing everything humanely possible to keep the little length I had left. Before I knew it she had transformed my hair from a massacre to what was in this case, a masterpiece! I was in shock to see just how much she had fixed it, and although I lost some length and my hair was nothing like I originally hoped. It was much better than before.

In case you were wondering, the party went fantastically and my girlfriends and I had an excellent time. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I got many fantastic gifts too! But perhaps one of the greater gifts was the wisdom my mother had installed in me that very day. She taught me that although things may seem impossibly bleak, there’s always something you can do, and although mourning may seem like a good solution the only true solution is to do damage control and try to fix things no matter how bad they are.