“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” Thomas Paine
This week, I’m prepping for my god-daughter’s college tour. We’re going to 8 schools in 5 different states in 5/6 days, truly exciting! There’s nothing better than encouraging our youth to pursue their dreams, but more importantly choosing the right college means everything! College is supposed to be the best years of your life, and if you’re miserable…fuggetaboutit! So with that said, I think it’s important that she sees the schools that she’s interested in. But enough about that, I will be blogging via Facebook about that trip, so tune in there.
Planning this tour has really made me think back to when I was visiting schools my junior/senior year, and going to college for my freshman year. And some 15 some-odd years later (don’t do the math on that); it’s amazing how I can still remember prepping for school like it was yesterday! My parents were divorced and at this time hated each other, so the way we had to plan things out were structured...umm uniquely (that’s code for “making sure they were never in the same room together.”) My mother lived in Tennessee, so the plan was I would go down to Tennessee earlier than school started, and she would prep me and take me down on the “first leg” (Saturday-Wednesday). My sister would then, ride down with my father and they would catch the “second leg” (Wednesday-Saturday) of getting me started. This schedule is important to note and a crucial part of the story. It’s important to also not that my sister was not with me during the pre-college time spent with my mother, she was still in Cleveland visiting my father. If my sister would have been there, there would be no story to tell lol. This is a story I like to call “The day I learned my mother was a hype man.”
So, here I am in Fayetteville, TN, bonding with my mother sort of, we were besties so there’s no real bonding necessary, it was more like shooting the shit, when I mention that I wanted to go to school with kind of a different look. I was known for changing my hair in a heartbeat, and my hair at the time was short, so I couldn’t cut it for a different look and I thought that maybe I should dye it to switch things up. Yup, dye it! Now, this was one week before freshman orientation. One week before the Operation: Take Nik to Tallahassee. One week before I was living on my own and making new friends in a new environment. One week before I had to navigate a new city, find a new hairdresser, and start a new life. JUST ONE WEEK.
Now, when I suggested my “make over” to my mother, in true Big Bev fashion, she said “I think that’s a great idea! Yes! I think you should do it!” Siggghhh, if I knew then, what I know now, I would have backed away immediately. NOW, I realize I can say to my mother, “Mommy, I want to be a janitor. I want to own my own janitorial company, and spend my life scrubbing floors.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with this, it isn’t, however to the girl with many school loans and two degrees…eehhh? Probably not the best idea) My mother would most likely respond “I think that’s a great idea! Yes! I think you should do it!” The EXACT same answer! What I’m trying to say here is that what I didn’t realize then is my mother is a hype man! She will NEVER tell you anything is a bad idea if you believe in it. She will ALWAYS support you. She firmly believes go out, live, love, and make mistakes. She flies by the seat of her pants and goes with the wind. There’s no filter, there’s no halt button, there’s no, no. Sounds great right? Not so fast….
What comes next is that fork in the road I talked about last TBT (throwback Thursday), but this time where I went left, I’m certain I should have gone right. And when I say certain, I mean certain as the day turns night. Right after I said to my mom I wanted to dye my hair, she responded “I can do it for you. I used to dye hair aaaaall the time in college”. **Pause for a moment**
There were many clues that this was not going to end up…ummm...optimal, yes that’s a good word, optimal:
This was clue numero uno! In school boo?? Uhhh that was like 20 years prior if not longer, did you really flashback to ummmm…college? But again, the hype man got me well…hyped. So off we went to the mall Wal-Mart and we bought a highlight and frost kit, yup you read that right…FROST. So that day, we prepped, and that night we executed the plan.
Clue 2, my mom was reading the directions…pause here. The directions boo? I thought you did this all the time???
Clue 3, my mom decided too much dye was left over, and it was wasteful, she flipped the cap up and smeared a bunch on the back.
Clue 4, at the mark where they, the professionals who made the product explicitly said take the color out, my mother, the professional in her head, said “it should stay on longer”. Proclaimed we were being wasteful -_-
***Oh my loves, what happened next was the biggest tragedy of 1994…of the decade…of perhaps my young life. Yes, bigger than that time I fell down the stairs on the black side of school. Yes, bigger than that time I threw up on that girl on the Mohican Camp bus in elementary school. This was nothing shy of pure catastrophe. When we rinsed thine hair in the sink, I audibly heard my mother gasp. ***
This is the last and final clue that things were going to be not just bad, but DAMN BAD! I looked in the mirror, and there was neither a frost nor highlight in sight. My hair in fact was completely….wait for it… orange. Yup, orange not burgundy, not brown, not light brown, not blond highlights….orange homie, orange. ALL OF IT!
ONE WEEK BEFORE MY NEW LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was so bad, it was funny. I promise we laugh for hours. We laughed until I cried, and I laugh-cried until real tears came and after the real tears, the sobs came, and then the meltdown. Oh, and was it an epic meltdown. Because remember I was in Fayetteville, Tn., so umm yeah…who was gonna to fix this boooooo?????? My mom claimed it could be fixed. So, the next day we made an emergency appointment at a salon in Huntsville, Alabama, but all they could do was drop a dark rinse on it. It was, in fact…unfixable.
Yup, one week….before…my…new…life.
In one week it all changed.
But here’s the funny thing, when the week finally came and I went to school, it didn’t even matter. Only two people knew me before college and once they got over the shock, they were fine. Apparently, if you’ve never known what normal was, you’ll assume normal is. (Don’t question that, it sounded good when I was typing it. It makes sense. Trust me)
Listen, lesson’s come in various avenues. Some lessons can be outright and some more concealed. But eventually, a lesson WILL reveal itself. And more importantly, if you do not learn your lesson, it will repeat itself until you figure it out. There’s no avoiding a lesson that is destined or pre-destined to be yours.
My lesson that day was multi layered, there were soooo many: Follow your gut… don’t be afraid to ask questions… if it doesn’t seem right, it isn’t…your mother doesn’t have a clue of what she’s doing (okay maybe that wasn’t a lesson per se, but certainly a fact).
That day I ignored the lessons. One week later, I was an orange-head. Lesson learned.
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