I got my hair cut earlier this month. It was a New Year's/birthday chop and ohhhhh did it feel good to let go of the old and embrace the new. When I showed the stylist the picture of the girl with the white-blonde mohawk, and I watched the pleased look come across his face, I knew I'd chosen correctly.
The salon was empty; I knew I should have felt like an asshole, but I was too giddy to do that. And the music; I had heard it before - it was this beautiful, haunting sound that I couldn't place. "This is Fleet Foxes," he told me. "They are from Seattle." When I lived in Athens, I was in my favorite boutique (hi, Helix), alone and feeling magnificent. I was totally into the music they were playing over the speakers at the time, so I asked the cashier who we were listening to (notepad in my hand). "Cole Plane," she told me. "Cole Plane?" I repeated back. "COLE PLANE." I was really disappointed I couldn't find them anywhere, internet or otherwise. Weeks later, the song 'Yellow' by Coldplay was all over the place. Oh. Duh.
I really felt the change. It was tangible. It was all over the floor & in my eyes and scratching my neck and it was annoying as shit. When I stood up and saw the revolution the stylist had created on my head, I felt ten years younger and all I could think was 'why didn't I have the balls to do this 10 years ago?'.
Driving back home up A1A, I was flooded with this sense of completion for the time gone by, and at the same time, a bubbling up of the life I still had yet to begin. Not everyone is at the top of their game in their twenties. Or their thirties. I feel like it's all been far too much fun and games. And whatever I was going to be at 23, is gone now, forever. But now I'm looking at this huge sheet of clean canvas that will someday be the portrait of these next 30 years. Here I am; rolling up my sleeves and digging in.
