Haircut

I watched the face in the mirror as my stylist Sara snipped the edges of my newly dyed hair. The light glimmered off Sara's nose piercing as she chatted about her life, the weather, and whatever else. I couldn't concentrate on her words today; I focused on the piercing. She dressed conservative compared to some in the salon, but today the nose ring stood out. I had wanted one once. I had my tattoos on my wrist, inside ankle, and side. And I'd pierced my belly button. But each "rebellion" were small and easily hidden. The nose ring had been too obvious.

What had stopped me? Was that where I'd started sacrificing who I wanted to be for who I was "supposed" to be? I wasn't sure. How does one sort through forty-three years of possibilities for what went wrong?

I couldn't change my childhood. Whatever darkness haunted me then, I had still held to my dreams. The change must have come once I was on my own.

Perhaps the problem was college? I had done that all out of order. I'd transferred four times, and dropped out twice with a two-year break before slowly finishing online. No, I concluded, it wasn't that. I had graduated with an accredited degree from a school I was proud to be a part of and had finished without debt. The breaks had helped me learn who I was, which is the idealistic point of college anyway--to turn teenagers into functional adults.

I went through a long list: friends, jobs, grades, influences, books, idols, dreams; anything that could have distracted me from the path of destiny.

"Ok Mrs ----, you'll all set. What do you think?" Sara's smiling face jerked me from my reflection. I took the hand mirror, relived to escape my own interrogations.