Affirmation

I get asked regularly about the streak at the front of my hair, and I tell people the truth, that it's partly natural, as I'm turning very white there, but I enhance it and even it out, which is why it looks blonde. But there's actually more to the story.

Back in 1998 (holy cow, 10 years already!), it was the June after my soon-to-be-ex and I moved apart, and I felt as if my life had been a total failure. Not only did I no longer have my marriage, my life and home I had known before, but I had been fired from a job that I had loved, and with it, I knew, a career was gone as well. My salvation came from two places, the therapist I saw who had been somewhat helpful, and a dear old (gay, and very platonic) friend who stepped back into my life unexpectedly, two days after losing my job, after not having seen him for about 8 years.

He was in a bit of flux himself, and he and I hung out over that summer, and found I was able to make lemonade, so to speak, out of my unemployment and my lack of ties. We hung out at his family's lake house near me, we cooked on the grill and smoked cigars on my patio, we drove up to Boston to hang out with his sister, who became a good friend of mine. A bunch of us went on a great camping trip to Fire Island, full of lazy afternoons, and moonlit margarita epiphanies. It turned out to be a wonderful summer, and helped me get my head around my new, single life.

During that time, I let go of a lot of things, and one of them was coloring my hair, something I had been doing since I was in my 20's. I was curious to see what it really looked like, and as it grew in, I had this chunk of white hair coming out near the front that I liked. As it continued to grow out, though, I did recognize that most of my head was this steely salt and pepper look that was unflattering and aged me quite a bit. I knew that I'd be coloring it again before I got serious about finding a job.

In the meantime, my ex and I had been play-acting at "staying friends," and one evening, when I had occasion to see him, the first thing he said when he saw me was, "What the hell are you doing with yourself? You've totally let yourself go, and your hair looks like shit!" Now, this was typical of how he had treated me while we were married, and a large part of why I wasn't with him anymore, but I decided to let it go. After all, I *had* decided that I needed to color it again, right?

I had made up my mind in advance of this that I wanted to get taken out to dinner; I was unemployed and broke, so this was the least he could do. So I swallowed the anger, and we headed out to dinner, where things went from bad to worse. Over the course of the meal, he proceeded to tell me just how disappointed he was in me. When he married me, I had so much potential, so intelligent, and yet I had failed to make anything of myself or do anything meaningful with my life. He was relentless, and I wound up needing everything I had not to burst out into tears right there in the restaurant. I finally had to cut the dinner short, and lost my composure as we exited the place.

He continued on the drive back to my house, despite my tears, telling me that he had been so glad when I told him that I was seeing a therapist (he had refused to see a marriage counselor with me), and that he had expected that I would have learned a few things and made some progress with her over the several months I had been seeing her. I told him that I had, and that one of the important things I had taken from my sessions was that it was important to surround myself with people who cared about me for who I already am, and who support me.

"Oh, so the woman with only one eye needs to surround herself with blind people so she can feel good about herself," his voice dripping with scorn. His remark is so frozen in my memory that I remember everything about it, even exactly where we were on the road. It couldn't have hurt more if he had struck me, and I knew at that moment that I would never, could never, regard him again as a friend.

A couple of days later, as I looked in the mirror, hair color bottle ready to go, those gray roots kept making me think of that awful conversation, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep it that way as a promise to myself that I would never, ever allow myself to be treated that way or spoken to that way again. So, I decided to keep that white section without color, and I called it my affirmation. For a long time, whenever I'd notice it, that day would come to mind.

It's been nearly ten years now, and the white section has grown considerably, enough that it would be hard to get it ,these days, to the dark chestnut that covers the rest of my head. I hardly ever think about my ex when I look at it anymore. I suspect that perhaps it has changed from being an affirmation of self to a talisman that protects me, as I've never even come close to a relationship with any man who would be so uncaring and cruel. I'm told it's my "trademark," and I get strong protests from my family and friends (most of whom do not know this story) when I talk about changing it, so for now, it stays.