I think I’m a “hairpocrite”. I have coined this term by combining the words “hair” and “hypocrite”. I think it has a resonant ring to it, don’t you? Maybe I should trademark it or something. Hmm…

You may be asking yourself what I mean by “hairpocrite”. Well, my inquisitive readers, I will tell you. My “hairpocrisy” started the day I noticed gray hairs spouting from my scalp. This was perhaps 10 years ago, while I was in my mid-30s. They weren’t too noticeable at first, just a little shimmer when light would hit them just right.

I was already getting highlights in my hair occasionally and one day my stylist, Annabelle, said, “You know, the gray is starting to come in, do you want to cover it or let it go?” Without a blink of hesitation I said, “Make it go away.” This was the exact opposite thing I told my mother about 25 years earlier when she started to go gray.

My mother has beautiful, thick, curly Sicilian hair. If she doesn’t blow dry it, the kinky curls take over. When I was about 10, Mom asked me if she should color her hair to hide the gray. I adamantly said, “Absolutely not, Mom! It’s unnatural to color your hair. Look at some of those old ladies at church with jet black hair, pretending that they’re young. They look like freaks!”

So, Mom let the gray come in and it is lovely. She has the classic “salt and pepper” thing going on with her hair. Luckily, it didn’t come in all in one spot, like the middle of her scalp, rendering her a human Pepe Le Pew.

I didn’t even consider keeping the gray when it happened to me and I think I know why. One of the parts of my appearance that I’ve always appreciated has been my hair. Yes, I’ve wished for it to be less big. (Remember my recent relaxing experiment? A total fail, by the way.) All in all, though, I have great hair. When the gray started making its presence known, I felt like I was losing one of the things I really liked about myself and I couldn’t let that happen.

I “should” be able to look into the mirror and be evolved enough to love myself as I am, gray hair and all. That’s what all the self-help talking heads tell us, right? Maybe one day I will, but today isn’t that day. Call me vain, immature or yes, even a “hairpocrite”. But as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O’Hara:

Today I’m getting my hair straightened. Yes, this girl who is so pale that the glare off her skin blinds small children, needs to make her hair calm the hell down. For those of you who haven’t met me in person, I don’t have curly locks that are wayward and unruly. I have VERY thick, straight hair that can frizz and look like a mushroom on top of my shoulders. I didn’t inherit my mother’s Sicilian skin tone or hair texture.

When I was getting my hair cut and colored last weekend, my stylist, Annabelle, suggested the straightening idea as she listened to my lament about my hair overwhelming my face. Even though my hair is in a chin-length bob, sometimes I feel like a weird cross between Cousin Itt from The Addams Family and Gilda Radner’s character from Saturday Night Live, Roseanne Roseannadanna.

I’m hoping this treatment works because I really like my hairstyle a lot. In the past, in order to avoid the mushroom cloud, my hair had to be past my shoulders so the weight of it deflated the mushroom. Think feathered, brunette Farrah hair and you’ll know what my prom pictures looked like in the early 80s. I don’t want to grow my hair longer because (a) After 45, long hair usually makes you look older; and (b) It’s too much work and I have the patience of a gnat on crack.

The other option is to cut it short. I had short hair from the 1990s until a couple of years ago. It’s easy and cute and I may go back to it someday. But, there’s something about a chin-length bob that I like. Maybe it’s the sleek, sexy quality of the cut. What girl doesn’t like sleek and sexy, right?

In life, we all have to make the best of what we have. We play up our best features and play down our less desirable ones. I will never be tall and have legs that seem to go on for days. But I do have good hair that just needs a little taming, that’s all. Wait. I now have the image of my stylist with a whip in one hand and a chair in the other taming my mane. Oy.