Hello, my name is Gillian and I'm a Haircolor Hermaphrodite.

My mother was born a green-eyed blonde, both her siblings had red hair.  By the time my mother was in high school her hair had darkened significantly, and by the time she married my Dad, it was nearly black.  Thick and lustrous, she was featured in hair commercials for Joseph Anthony Salon when I was a little girl, in Syracuse, N.Y.  Her hair was part of her identity, and when she was ill and lost most of her hair, I know it was hard on her.

She always indulged my brother and I at the salon.  My brother Michael got highlights in the early 1980's, long before it was fashionable or reasonable to let a boy experiment with hair color.  He was ahead of his time.  I waited longer to experiment with my color.  As a baby, my hair favored my redheaded aunt and uncle but quickly darkened to a chocolatey brown.   For reasons I cannot explain to you, I never felt at home in my dark hair.  It didn't reflect on the outside who I was on the inside.  I felt rather like a haircolor hermaphrodite.

I began my experimentation with hair color my senior year of high school.  Of course, like most newbies, I began with highlights.  My hairdresser Michael, who I had seen since age 9, called it 'frosting'.  Sounded delicious!  Who wouldn't want frosting?  So, shortly before I met my first real boyfriend, also Michael, my brown tresses were frosted blonde. Those striking highlights brought me new confidence I didn't think possible!  Okay, maybe it was also first love, but damn the hair made me feel good about myself.

Although I was devoted to my stylist, during my college years, it was difficult to make the 5 1/2 hour drive.  I began to experiment with color on my own.  By the time I was a junior at Penn State, I had my "A-ha" moment!  I realized that I was a redhead born in a brunettes body.

I spent the summer before my senior year in Greenwich Village, N.Y.C..  My independence, the pulse of the city, a group of crazy friends, a slightly dangerous apartment, young love and a minor rhinoplasty, contributed to me becoming truly myself. All that, and a good shiny coat of red-on-the-head.  When I went back to Penn State for my senior year, I was more myself than ever before. I met my husband Jeffrey that year; in the 22 years since, he has never known any Gillian other than redheaded Gillian.  I like it that way.

An aside: Michael, the high school boyfriend, found out sometime in the mid-1990's that I had undergone the metamorphosis from brunette to redhead and wasn't at all pleased.  Like his opinion counted?  Maybe I should be concerned he will avenge my former hair color -- after all he did just get out of prison, and his younger brother Ben had sex reassignment and renamed himself after me. Gillian.  No joke. I cannot make this stuff up

It hasn't been all foils and roses.  I had a fabulous stylist the four years I lived in Akron, Ohio.  Ron was a chemist by day for Akzo-Nobel and at night he ran his own old-school beauty salon.  When Jeff finished his Ph.D. we moved to Columbus and I carefully kept the hair color formula on a folded piece of paper to give to my new stylist.  I found a salon in trendy Grandview that seemed perfect.  Glenn was flamingly gay and adorable and I decided at once he was THE ONE.  I trusted Glenn with my hair.  He tossed the formula to the wind and ensured me that he would create a masterpiece for my job interview with COSI the following morning.  The salon was my battlefield where I endured eight hours of sheer hell

Beauty can be painful, but this was BEYOND.   His first attempt left me with a full head of clown red hair.  Glenn said it was gorgeous.  I held back my tears.  FIX IT.  My clothes were drenched, my hair was falling out in clumps, my scalp was bleeding, and during those eight hours my hair color was changed from fire engine red to fluorescent orange to baby pink before the owner shut down the salon and stepped in to save us both.  It took a year of loving care for my hair to return to its former glory.  There are several morals to this story: 1.) just because he is cute and gay doesn't make him a good hair stylist, 2.) when you find a good colorist, appreciate him/her, and then 3.) DON'T EVER MOVE!

So, here I am in Savannah, GA.  I broke rule #3 and moved away from my beloved Amanda; my hair longs for her magic touch. Amanda is 13 hours away in Worthington, Ohio.  Too far to drive for a red fix.  Crazy as this may sound, Amanda would examine my head and listen.  My hair would tell her what it wanted, what it needed.  Amanda could hear my hair speaking to her. Right now, my hair is screaming at me and crying her name.  Last week, Amanda PM'ed me and said she missed my hair.  The feeling is mutual.

A great color job can be better than good sex.  Nothing makes me feel sexier. Or more satisfied.

Recently, my blonde daughters asked for 'more blonde'.  Their hair is naturally darkening.  Oh, I know this is a slippery slope.  As a parent, I encourage my daughters to appreciate their inner beauty and place value on their talent and intelligence.  I also understand the power of  hair color to enhance self-confidence.  How can I color my own hair and not allow them the same privilege? If they feel blonde, it makes sense to me that their reflections match who they feel they are on the inside.  It is only hair color after all. Visions of tattoos better wait until they are living under someone else's roof... 

So, I am a red headed wannabe, and my daughters are convinced they are blondes.  Gilly is sassy, opinionated, fiery and passionate and my red hair suits me.  Gillian is not a brunette.  I know some people would say I shouldn't color my hair, that I should accept who I am, as G-d intended.  In my case, I AM BEING MYSELF.

Perhaps G-d was snoozing when my hair color was assigned, for if I know anything, I know I am a red head.

Dreaming a New Dream

As follow up to my last Blog post, Forties ARE Fabulous: Losing Sight While Gaining Vision, here are my new specs. ^ I am lucky to have great friends who've made me feel much better about my declining eyesight by telling me that I look "sexy" in my new specs.  Hot for teacher is just fine with me!  Ha!  Well, whether they're sexy or spinster, they're mine and I'm owning it! 8-)

This week, I was planning to blog about why I call myself a "red headed wannabe", but then I had a dream which was so significant that I'm shifting gears, for now.  For those of you who already know me, it will come as no great surprise that I had a dream worthy of writing about.  If someone can come up with a way to record my dreams, I am fairly certain I could make millions at the box office.  Most are just realistic enough to be either terrifying or profoundly moving, and although there are moments where nothing makes sense, my dreams are like my parallel universe.  Think Sliding Doors.

I have dreamed in black and white.  I have dreamed entirely in French.  I can will myself to reenter a dream.  Once I shared a dream with someone else (don't ask). More than once, the dead have visited me in my dreams, not my loved ones who have passed, but people I don't know, wanting to know if I really can see and hear them.  Sometimes I dream of things before they happen.  My parents used to call me "witchy".

Now that you think I am completely whacked, there's another thing -- I remember all my dreams in vivid detail for hours, days, sometimes months or years after having them.  No, not all of them, but many, and some haunt me in my waking hours.  I have a handful of reoccurring dreams that I can still remember from early childhood.  I could sit down and tell you about them.

Every night of my life, my dreams from the previous sleep reenter my head as if beckoning me to my other life.  I can't stop it.  It is part of who I am.

My favorite dreams are when my Mother visits me.  Since she passed away, five and half years ago, I most often dream she is angry with me.  Lord only knows why, because if you knew my Mom, you would understand how crazy that is!  But I love when I dream we are talking on the phone.  It's like having a personal line to heaven.  We talk about everyday things, just like old times. I wake up gloriously happy and then reality hits me.  Hard.

This New York girl was happily living in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio until summer 2011. It took years of adjustment, but I was truly happy living in the mid-west. Idyllic neighborhood, comfortable home, greatest girlfriends.  My two daughters were well adjusted, had wonderful friends, were involved in many activities, they loved their school.  In this happy mix, my husband was very unhappy.  Fourteen years at a job where his talent and efforts were under-appreciated and going nowhere fast.  After three rounds of layoffs, he saw the writing on the wall, and wanted to be in the drivers seat in seeking a position at a company who would recognize his value.  Seasonal depression didn't help either.  So, when he was offered a job in Savannah, Georgia  it was HIS dream come true.  This was not MY dream.

Marriage is work, an ever changing partnership that sometimes asks more of one, and later the other.

My best girlfriends rallied around me during the interview process and promised me the move wasn't really going to happen. We had backyard patio pow-wows, and huddled together over cocktails in messy group denial. We cried.  No one wanted to believe it when I announced we were actually moving.  My house sold before it was put on the market and we were gone before reality sunk in completely.

Change is HARD.  Six months in a tiny, dark apartment was plenty of time for me to come to terms with my new reality. Fast forward a year and a half post-move, a lot has changed.  We live in a home that is beyond what I ever imagined for myself.  We are part of a remarkable congregation that instantly felt like home.  Like family.  Our house is ten minutes drive from Tybee Island beach, ten minutes from Historic Savannah.  My children are resilient; both are doing well in school and have each made terrific friends.  My husband loves his job, and his new company knows they won the lottery when they hired him.

The sunshine offers powerful healing, for all of us. 

Time has a way of making things clear, and so do my dreams.  Last Saturday night, I dreamed that my husband took a job back in central Ohio and sold our beautiful waterfront home. Without telling me.  Without telling the kids.  Surprise!  He was doing what he thought we WANTED him to do.  Sacrificing his dreams for ours.  There were no goodbyes in Georgia.  No chance to pack-up.  No chance to grieve our new life.  It was shocking.  The kids and I knew that going back to our old neighborhood would be different.  Our former house is not OUR home anymore.  Scene fades to black as I rode in the car as a helpless passenger on the road to "home". Awake.

I lay in bed wondering, just where is "home"?  I'm not sure I know.  Truth?  You can never go home again.  Little by little, your space is occupied -- by other volunteers, other employees, other friends.  People stop expecting to see you around the corner.  Little by little, they've moved on and so have I. 

I told my children about the dream.  My 11-year-old was stricken, "Mommy, I'm not sure moving back would be what I want anymore".  And then she said, "I loved our life before, but I don't think I would want to leave my friends here, or my teachers, or our home.  I would miss the ocean".  I had to agree. 

I miss my friends terribly.  Everyday.  But, my move didn't cause me to lose their friendship or their love, and I've gained so much.  A whole new world has opened itself up to us in Savannah that we never dreamed possible.  I am grateful for my Ohio life.  I am filled with gratitude for this new beginning.  The gears have shifted.  We are ready to ride...

Did I trade my friends for a house with a view? No.  The decision to move was out of my hands, but I can appreciate the view and dream a new dream.  While I'm awake.

Losing Eyesight while Gaining Vision

Today I am 43.  I have to pinch myself to believe it.  Pinch. Pinch.  Still not totally buying it.  When I look in the mirror I don't see a person who is middle aged, and yet, I am.  When my Mom threw a 40th birthday party for my Dad back in  March of 1980, I distinctly remember thinking, "Geez, my Dad is really old"!    There were the obvious gag gifts like bottles of Geritol and Over the Hill cards that worried me, but mostly it was the number. FORTY.  Somehow, age brings perspective to us all, and forty doesn't seem nearly as old as it did when our parents "joined the club". 

So, you might wonder what my birthday gift to myself is for the ripe old age of 43; I've just ordered my first prescription eye glasses.  For those of you who have worn contact lenses or eye glasses since childhood, you may find this totally non-monumental, but for me this is a MAJOR leap into middle age. It has been painful having to admit to myself that I no longer have my famed Eagle Eyes.

Jeffrey nicknamed me Eagle Eyes close to 21 years ago, near the time we met.  I had been blessed with 20/10 vision in both eyes.  Better than 20/20.  It is one of my few natural gifts, in addition to my freakishly long arms which can reach anything.  I've always been proud of my superior eyesight.  Jeff relied on me on road trips to read long distance signage on the highways, and my eyes never failed me.  Well, that is not entirely true...

Flashback to summer 1986.  My Mom took my little brother Michael, me and my best friend Hilken away to Brigantine Beach Island, NJ, near Atlantic City.  We were sweet 16.  It was a wonderful vacation in the sun, sand, seeing shows at the Resort Hotels and sneaking into the casinos underage.  On the drive home to Syracuse, we played the soundtrack to The Big Chill, and sang at the top of our salty lungs.  Suddenly, I saw it -- a decapitated body in the median.  SCREAMING. PANIC.  My Mom believed me.  We got off at the next exit.  Middle of upstate-boondock-nowheresville.  Stopped at the firehouse in a one-street town.  Within minutes, the entire town had collected -- old people on bicycles, children on their big wheels, rusty upstate NY pickup trucks.  We formed a caravan to find the body; half the town joined the investigation.  A greasy man named Vaughn rode shotgun to my Mother to ensure we stayed calm.  Later, my Mother had to sell her car to get rid of the grease stains he left behind on the camel colored upholstery.  No joke.  But, this is part is funny, well, now it's funny: it was a dead deer in the median, positioned in such a way that my eyes had been fooled.  Just like the "Sammy the Seal" story from my first blog post, you may imagine I never lived this down.  I can hear you saying it now, Only you Gillian!  Yes, only me.  Drama seems to follow me all of my days.  

And speaking of drama, my eyes are like the Phoenix which rises from the ashes.  If you didn't know me in January of 1999, you wouldn't know that my Eagle Eyes were nearly lost.  I went in, just before my 29th birthday for my third sinus surgery.  It was necessary to remove several small bones in my face (near my nose) to permanently open my right and left maxillary sinuses.  Against my better judgement, I agreed to have the procedure done in a surgery center.  The ENT surgeon began the surgery by injecting lidocaine up through my right nostril, intending it to go down into my right sinus, but the sinus had scarred closed and the lidocaine ended up traveling the path of least resistance and found it's way behind my right eye.  One thing lead to another and my eye ended up blowing up to the size of a tennis ball, and came entirely out of its socket!  The doctor cut an incision out the right side of my eye to relieve the pressure, gave me Mannitol to reduce the swelling and then things got worse.  In true Gillian fashion, my heart stopped and my lungs filled with pulmonary edema.  Three hours of CPR.  One Ambulance ride to the hospital.  One week of panicked doctors circling my bed.  Months of tests and recuperation.  Doctors worried that my optic nerve was done for.  They told me I might be permanently blind.  I looked like a battered woman, and every time Jeff took me to a doctor's appointment, people muttered under their breath about Jeff, "my abuser".  I had several plastic surgeries to repair my lower and upper eyelids.  Remarkably, my eyesight not only returned in time, but remarkably regenerated back to the original 20/10.  A miracle.  (P.S. No sinus surgery actually happened in 1999.  I waited until 2007 and finally had the procedure done successfully by a different surgeon.)

Happy ending?  Not quite.  This is a Gillian story after all!  In October of 1999, I went on a business trip to Miami, Florida.  Woke up to attend a conference in an air conditioned hotel room.  As my eyes flashed open to hit the alarm, my cornea TORE off.  Completely.  My right eyelid, now too small for my eye, had adhered to my cornea in the night. I ended up in a fetal position in a wheelchair which my face bandaged on a plane home the following morning.  It was the one time in my life when I understood how pain could make a person want to die.  Agony to the tenth power.  All these years later, I still have reoccurring corneal abrasions and must still use sterile lubricant/ointment in my eyes most nights. Not complaining, mind you, we all have our crosses to bear.  I share this with you so you might understand why I have such an unusual relationship with my eyes.

(As a side note, my favorite felines also seem to suffer in the eye department.  Several years ago, my kitty boy Goliath passed away at age 16 after a battle with cancer which began in the angle of his eye.  Our veterinarian surgically removed his beautiful amber eye so we were able to enjoy several more years with him as a pirate cat. Last year, we rescued a pair of kittens here on the islands.  Both were born with eye anomalies.  My beloved baby boy, Perry Pepper, was born without eyelids.  This week I took him for a second surgery to cryogenically freeze the fur from above his eyes.  He gets the same ointment in his eyes that I do, and he seems to know.  We sleep together every night, his damaged eyes snuggled into my neck.)

It is a matter of how we SEE ourselves.  If I were asked to come up with a list of my attributes, my superior eyesight would be on that list.  Well, it would have been on that list.  This past year, threading needles to mend kids clothes, I knew that my list would be changing.  I can no longer thread the eye of a needle on the first try.  It is exasperating.  That was the first sign of my failing eyesight.  Then it became difficult to read books; I had no choice but to admit to myself it was time for glasses.  So, I found a doctor, got a prescription and then I waited.  Waited for months.  Just. Couldn't. Do. It.

Then, this past weekend, my family dragged me, and my prescription, to pick out frames.  I guess my taste in eyeglasses frames is as poor as my taste in shoes and handbags.  (You know who you are -- who have long made fun of my taste in shoes and purses!)  The Opthamologist laughed and my family just sadly shook their heads when I modeled the pair I liked best.  Grace has great taste and chose my frames. I selected a simple pair with copper rims to match my hair.  Now, as I squint at my PC monitor, I am waiting for them to come in.  I wonder, will I look like Granny Goose?  Will I see myself differently?  (I think yes.)  Will they make me look, gasp, older?  Like I'm 43?  Stay tuned for a photo update.  You be the judge.   :-)

I may be losing my eyesight, but I am gaining vision -- clarity about what I want for myself, and what is MOST important.  I know one thing, even if my eyesight is failing, the forties are fabulous! XOXO

♥ Gilly

Comfortable in YOUR own Skin

Hi!  I'm Gilly.  Soon to be 43, Yankee transplant living in the deep South, mother of two beautiful daughters, married for 17 + years, new blogger.  For years, people have told me I should blog, and I have hesitated to do so.  It seems like everyone has one, why would anyone read mine?  I'm hoping that you will connect with me and feel like we know one another, after a time.  I'm not a professional in beauty/cosmetics, psychology, health or wellness any more than the next person, but I am REAL, and occasionally, I'm told, funny. :-)

I encourage your comments and suggestions as I continue on this blogging journey.  Here we go...

Do you remember being 11 or 12 and suddenly feeling like every part of you was magnified?  Every blemish seemed monumental, a bad-hair-day meant a single stray hair was not cooperating, and every outfit needed to be dazzling? For me, it felt like if any one of these things wasn't PERFECT, my day would be terrible, everyone would notice, I would lose friends, and my life would be over.   And it got worse.  I became a teenager.  My Mom has passed (a story for a future blog) and I sure wish I could apologize now for my wild mood swings that lasted from 1982-1989.  Now, with two daughters of my own, I consider it payback time.  Some adult women forget this turbulent time, and others, like me, still hold these tender feelings from long-ago close to the surface.  I remember.  But, the great news is, I am not a teenager anymore.  This week I will begin my 44th year and although I sometimes miss my 19 year old body, I wouldn't trade feeling comfortable in my own skin for it.  No way.

Flashback to fall 1988, my college dormitory at Penn State University.  Simmons Hall, 4th floor.  My RA and two roommates were waiting for me, as usual, to finish primping and perfecting myself to go eat in the dining hall downstairs.  I had curlers in my hair, a fresh outfit planned and while they all stood waiting in the hallway, I ran down to the shared bathroom to quickly shave my legs.  Yes, I had to make sure that my legs were shaved because G-d forbid some fox that I was scoping were to notice that my legs were not perfectly smooth!  My future husband would NOT be scared off by prickly calves!  In all my rush, I ended up in a puddle on the floor center stage in front of all my friends, earning me the permanent nickname "Sammy-the-Seal".  My RA was a Penn State Cheerleader, and she relished being down on the field, game-day, doing her impression of me slipping and sliding on the dorm floor, Sammy Style!  I share this story because it exemplifies my insecurities I suffered as a girl, not yet a woman.  Can you relate?  I remember that Gillian, and am glad I've outgrown her.  It's about being comfortable with who you are and being confident that others will like you for who is on the INSIDE.

My twenties were the start of my journey towards this goal; it was a pain-the-the-ass figuring out who I was.  I was probably at my peak for physical beauty, but still so unsure of myself,  forever concerned with people's perception of me, my looks and my talents.  In my thirties, I had my babies, and physical perfection was no longer an option, although I worked hard to maintain a healthy body during and post-pregnancy -- babies change everything.  I began to view the world through the eyes of a mother, accept my own flaws, and focus my attentions more on others.  Giving.  Sharing my love more freely.  Recognizing that the Gillian on the inside was more capable than I gave her credit for.  My fortieth birthday gave me the gift of peace with myself.  I honestly feel more beautiful now than I did twenty years ago.  It starts with giving yourself permission to just be:  Be happy.  Be strong.  Be healthy.  Be loved.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not letting myself go.  As G-d as my witness, I am going to fight my aging skin and  sagging backside as long as I have breath in my body, but I'm not going against nature to do so.  And, I'm not gonna lie -- some days I miss getting honked at, or having a head turn when I walk down a city street.  But, I don't ever miss feeling like I NEED that validation to feel good about myself.  And you don't either.

♥ Gilly

P.S. My daughter confirms I still get honked at.  Occasionally. :-)