How my flourishing was challenged at the hairdressers

A promotional photo from my hairdressers

I’ve just been for my regular visit to my local hairdresser. Some parts of me are still resisting being grey. I know it’s a bit of a contradiction in terms of how I am working with my ageing process, but it feels important to me. My hair is very long—which itself a bid for non-age stereotyping—and I am nervous about how it would look white and grey. For now, my feeling is that I am working across a whole range of ageing issues with myself and this one can be parked a while longer. So, I was there for my roots and a trim to my fringe.

We’re very fond of our hairdresser. We’ve been going there since we moved into the neighbourhood over twenty years ago. It’s part of a chain that works throughout the Netherlands, but I love the slightly decadent, subversive image that it represents—although all of us clients are just ordinary people from the neighbourhood.

I always arrange to have my appointments with the manager of the shop. We’ve known each other a long time and seen each other through some life changes. Although our conversations remain on a level that we can pick up, or drop depending on the mood, there’s a real sense of acceptance.

This came up strongly about eight months ago when I finally decided that my body could no longer cope with the chairs they use for washing hair.

As you can see in the picture, as part of their ultra-modern, zany style, they introduced these flat chairs to lie on while your hair is washed. I’ve never liked them or found them comfortable but that’s all there is, so there’s no choice. Rheumatoid arthritis affects my back and legs mostly, although sometimes it’s also hard to lift my arms. Lying in an artificial position for any length of time causes pain. As it worsens with ageing, some things I could previously just manage become more challenging. After suffering severe back pain for two weeks after a recent session at the hairdressers, I asked if there could be an alternative method of washing my hair. I rejected the idea that they could wrap up my hair plus colour and call my partner to pick me up by car and then wash it all off at home. There’s no harm meant by suggestions like this—it’s just a practical solution for them with little understanding of the implications for me.

 The solution we came to was that I would stand by the sink and bend over and then they would wash my hair. The first time we tried it meant there was no back pain, but it is very hard for someone with rheumatoid arthritis to stand for any length of time and more so if the position is strained. The next time I sat on a stool which kind of worked but was still tricky. It helps that my stylist is very quick and practical and gets things done.

Which brings us to my visit last week when I was dismayed to have a junior in the team approach me and tell me that she was going to wash my hair. This can happen from time to time because with my regular hairdresser being the boss, she often has other things to see to and passes on the routine washing to juniors. Although my stylist had given the young woman instructions about my needs with washing, she was completely out of her depth. She wanted to do her best but had no idea how to. She was slow, didn’t have any clue about how physically difficult it was for me and was slightly panicked at the responsibility of it all. Twice she missed huge swathes of colour still embedded in my hair. Once she had to run and get my own hairdresser to tell her what to do. I was so uncomfortable that I almost cried. Eventually the washing ended more or less successfully, and we went on to the combing out and drying.

Here I must make a confession. I had noticed this young woman earlier. She was very young and had a floating quality which led her to walk about the room as if she wanted to be seen. She was pretty with a ring in her nose, and she was wearing a beautiful ethnic style dress and overshirt in a gorgeous pattern. It’s the kind of unusual clothing that I love but I was put off by her apparent total focus on herself and her appearance.

As I sat there with her brushing and drying my hair, an intimate thing in itself, I was conscious of a myriad of feelings coursing through me. There was resentment, there was some envy, there was plenty of judgement and flowing strongly beneath it all, a deep sense of pain. There was no alternative but to sit through it all until very slowly, a tiny thread of what—kindness, compassion—I’m not sure began to emerge through the fog. What was I doing sitting there begrudging this young woman her joy in her youth, her delight in her appearance. How could I judge her for not understanding my feelings? How could I even explain them? She finished drying my hair and stepped back, stroking my hair over my shoulders. ‘How very soft it is’, she said in English. I took hold of the moment and told her how beautiful I though her dress was and asked her about it. We talked for a few moments, and she allowed me to feel the fabric. It helped to lance the knot in my being and gave me some peace.

As an epilogue I was able to find the courage to ask my hairdresser not to hand over my hair washing to other people in future and to do it herself. She totally got it and agreed.

I went home and poured out the whole story to my partner—my feelings of helplessness, my fears about the slowly increasing number of things my body finds challenging, how I felt undermined and the shame of resenting a young person facing a situation that she did not have the experience to cope with. How fortunate I am to have someone to share with in this way. I came to see that although my commitment to flourishing in the face of ageing had been under attack, I had managed to be aware of what was happening, to take small steps to avert myself from a negative course, and to take the courage to stand up for myself and to ask for what I need.

Sometimes the sense of flourishing can be small, everyday actions that help us to cope.

Do you have a story about pulling together your sense of flourishing in the face of challenges? I’d love to hear what happened.