2011 is the year that I really started to “go gray.” The light would hit just right as I used a mirror, and a new silver flash seemed to appear on a monthly basis. The one gray hair I had for years hidden in the unruly brown pixie atop my head suddenly has many companions. And I don’t mind a bit.
It’s a look that I feel like I’ve earned. I have never once colored my hair and I don’t intend to start. Not that I don’t appreciate a “new look”; on the contrary, to keep my hair short I visit the salon every four weeks and, fairly often, encourage my stylist to “do whatever she wants.” Really. After 15 years, I feel that I can trust her, and she always manages to capture “me.”
Yet I want to change how this blog looks and I cannot for the life of me select a new blog template! All week I have scrolled through the options over and over again – 172+ free and fairly priced blog templates that could be mine in literally one “click” of the mouse. Formats that vary a lot or a little from my current layout:
With the blank page photo header, or without.
Bold fonts making my name un-miss-able, keep a modest sub-heading, or go without entirely.
The exact same layout of side columns info, or completely different.
Keep the single-column posts, or go to a three-column format and triple the post exposure for visitors to the home page.
I heard once that frequent hair color changes indicates some other deep emotional issue. In last week’s post, I wrote about my resume angst and my struggle to clearly present myself professionally. That’s still an unresolved topic in Sudden.Write.Turn. land.
As I face down some potentially huge changes in my life in the coming days/weeks/months, it appears that I might be searching around desperately for changes that I can truly control. Changes that I orchestrate with complete confidence, and turn out exactly in the way intended. Instead, lately many of my “change my life” decisions are coming to bear all around me, and I’m starting to think…oh, sh*t.
So let’s change the blog theme! Crack open that bottle of hair dye!
…Anything to draw attention (mine, mostly) away from the deep, dark unknown yawning before me. A blog theme change seems harmless.
I vowed to myself long ago that I would never color my hair when the grays started coming in. Honoring that vow is the easy part; looking in the mirror and seeing the inevitable change is the hard part. But I have faith that before long it will be a “me” that I recognize again.
