Running With Color in My Hair

So much as the Firecracker 5K event would be held on July 5th in the years when July 4th fell on a Sunday, so I share about wearing colorful elastics in my hair for the running event on the day after the event had been held.

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My hair happened to be long & beyond my shoulders at this time. Which was good because running with my hair flopping about wasn't something I preferably enjoyed. I happened to have a bunch of these in a container from my younger years which I've kept around basically in-case-of-emergency.

I wore my hair in a French braid more times than I could possibly count - once I figured out & mastered how to weave & fold the locks of my hair accordingly - well, there was no stopping me. It was my creative juices at work. I'd wear one on each side sometimes, & sometimes I'd join the ones I wore on each side at the nape of my neck for a singular braid 'til the tip of the lock of my hair falling on down my backside.

Similarly so, I would bring together these locks of hair & join them, not in a braid, but rather with these, because I had them. So why not? They were fun, & colorful, & playful. Such an appropriate way to be while experiencing the fun & beautiful pleasure of running, preparing for a specific run.

I'd been quite confident & content with my hair in this way - all the way down to the color of my hair ties. In fact, I quite enjoyed them & specifically wished for them to be as such.

Why do I rant on about this, you ask? Because the first thing I heard, after I finished the 5K, & after I'd received a bland & basically monotone "Congratulations, we're proud of you." I was quickly informed of how these hair ties weren't what I should be wearing in my hair. Rather, I should be wearing something more like these or these. I'm a brunette, & therefore these options would look "most appropriate" & "blend in" best with my hair.

So this is about my parents & me. Yes, yes it is. This is how they perceive things & what they care to share & say. I believe it was Dad who broached the subject, approaching me as I walked over to them momentarily post finish line. "Mom noticed the elastics you're wearing in your hair." "Really shouldn't be using those." "Something more age-appropriate."

These are the fragments of what I probably could hear as a 5K finished up & a local parade finished getting set up. Of course I provided Dad with the all-too-familiar "deer in headlights" look. Why wouldn't I? How many people whose parents attend an event like this (where they were there only because I was there to run) would come close to any amount of preparation for this sort of commenting? It was identifiable only as absurd.

In remark to my automated expression was when Dad finished by saying, "Something more age-appropriate." It was he who was assisting in explaining what Mom believed would be best for me to use. As she'd squinted her face as if she'd eaten something past its due date. She added on after he'd said about "age-appropriate", "Don't you have them in black?" Because, of course, Dad wouldn't have been as familiar with this basic creative adjustment which would establish an instant on-the-mark age association for me. Not that I was trying to tag the other extreme either; I was just trying to be myself.

And this is how I respond to them. Well, that's not entirely correct. That's a fluid idea; completely ever-changing.

Which hair ties to wear though? Which should I be wearing? Well, that truly is all in who ya talk to. And the way I see that & interpret that, & act on that, that for me has changed in just these past few years (& in the few years before that too 😊).

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