Au natural/Illigally Blonde

To my horror of horrors, practically all my blonde hair is gone.

Thankfully, it hasn't all fallen out. More like washed out.

I saw my family a few nights ago to celebrate my birthday. Now, it was a little belated, but I still appreciate the fact that I get a birthday cake, not to mention that it was nice to see my family, including my grandparents, after weeks apart.

As we sat around waiting for dinner to arrive at our table, I noticed my mother's head swivel. She stared at the top of my head, my hair clumsily styled (since I wasn't really going out with anyone I wanted to impress).

"Your hair has really gone dark," she said, sticking a finger into it. Thanks mom...

"Meh," I said, shrugging it off. "Not like I've been outside much in a month to give it some natural lightening."

"No, it's really dark!" my grandfather chimed in. "Looks brown now."

"Remember when it used to be so blonde it was white?" my dad said, all sentimental-like. It was around this time that I started getting a little self-conscious.

"Oh, come off it...it's gone a little darker, but it's still got a lot of colour! I mean, it's got some red, some darker blonde..." I said, trailing off.

"Well, is it coloured?" my grandmother asked. "It looks like you dyed it brown!"

Ahh! Fuck, really? I thought to myself.

"It's...it's...well," I said in my hair's defense.

Other than a naturally-high sloped forehead, my hair has always treated me quite well. It grows like mad, a nice thick texture. And though I can't grow it too long before it starts flying everywhere, much less have it swoop dramatically a-la Zac Efron, it's not really failing me.

Up until now. I've gone from white-blonde, to blonde, to dirty blonde, to ash blonde...to brown. With red strands.

"But your beard still grows in red, I bet," my dad added.

Jesus, I'm multi-coloured. Add to that black chest hair, blonde arm hair, beige pubes...

Point being, I'm now questioning if I'm a legitimate blonde anymore. I've let my highlights wash away after having them touched up for about a year...and now I realize that there really isn't much blonde under the added colour.

It's a little ironic, since I've been thinking lately of a change, to the point of dying my hair quite dark and doing some non-blonde highlights. I haven't ever explored different hair colours, so I figure I'm entitled to making at least one really stupid mistake before packing it in.

But now that people are apparently recognizing me as non-blonde, I find myself gravitating back to my blonde locks. Save for the fact that now, my claim of being a natural blonde will be practically a lie. I'll become illegally blonde.

Ah well, it beats bald.