Neon and unnaturally dyed hair has been around forever — or, at least since the punk invasion of the early 1980s, making this trend roughly 40 years old. Up until now, I always resisted. To be frank, I never even had the urge to try. The whole point, at least early on, was to look ugly. At least, that’s how it seemed to me at the time.

A low key example of the spiky mohawk from the 1980s

There was one girl I went to college with who had a really cool colored streak tucked behind one ear. If memory serves correctly, hers was blue. Her hair was black, and the floating peek of color was both intriguing and beautiful.

But most of the time, bright color went hand in hand with shaving a part of one’s head, and, to use a phrase shamelessly lifted from Rupaul’s Drag Race and Project Runway, it just wasn’t my aesthetic. I’ve always been a natural rebel, but not when it came to my hair.

Classic Millennial couture? This look has been stylish among youth for 40 years, which says a lot about our society, if you think about it.

Maybe it was my exposure to a wider range of styles (and to my daughter, who had a really impressive fling with custom-made green she mixed up, see below) that gave me a new perspective. She obviously runs with a pretty fun crowd, and through their eyes I see color being used not merely as rebellion, but as a thing of beauty in and of itself.

I stopped seeing bright, unnatural color as merely a means of expressing hostility (something that, being from New York City, I am already comfortable doing when necessary, thanks) or rebellion.

It was wild, it was funky, it was just plain fun. I mean, when it comes down to it, a lot of women really would walk around with mermaid hair if we thought our jobs would allow it.

Some examples of mermaid hair (above and below)

Is it a trend that looks best on the young? As with everything else, absolutely. Does it require constant maintenance and upkeep, since the dyes are not permanent and therefore fade a little bit with every washing? Yes, it can be a gigantic pain in the ass to maintain. It’s a multi-step process for most people (you have to bleach your hair light first) and it can also be messy.

But, with a little tinkering, pretty much anyone can wear bright, unnatural hair colors and have fun with it, without endangering his or her job* (*LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I have absolutely no way of knowing that) or hair.

Okay, with me it did start with the loss of my job. It was a very conservative job in a very conservative industry where I didn’t think a cool hair color would be a welcome change for my image. Actually, the decision to do it started after a disastrous interview shortly thereafter, in which a headhunter on a Skype interview took a look at me, decided I was too close to his mother’s age to actually be employable and just glazed over without listening to another word I said on our scheduled interview. Certain that I would never get another job interview, much less a job, I did what many women do when faced with a difficult and emotional crisis.

I changed my hair.

The first go at my hair, unretouched. It was a small streak that could be braided back to hide it.

I should explain that my hair is a point of pride with me and always has been. After a brief flirtation with a pixie cut and a Farrah-do, I’ve basically had my hair long for most of my adult life. I changed color only grudgingly and usually only before a big business meeting (when I also would get my hair trimmed to something business-appropriate) because as a woman, I don’t feel that graying hair sends a great message to clients. But I still stuck as close as I could to my original color, which I would describe as dark chestnut auburn.

So now I finally felt rebellious enough to say a big “Screw ME? Well, screw YOU too!” to the rat race in general, and to that headhunter in particular. (I told you, I’m from New York.) So I changed my entire attitude. And as a woman in the United States of America, dammit, I felt the urge to externalize that. So, the first real sign of that was, of course, recreating my hair…and thus, my image.

I admit I was a bit scared of being bold. Despite a very creative start to my career, I had allowed myself to be boxed in, both professionally and stylistically, for the past 15 years and the act of defying what “the world” expected me to do was frightening.

And make no mistake: it was defiance. Even though it started with a whisper. It took a lot for me to let go of my fear of looking ‘unprofessional,’ and I admit it was partly that precise fear that still kept me from going farther. My first streak was strategically placed behind an ear, where I could show it or not, depending on how I parted my hair. It was defiant, but only tentatively so.

But it was, emotionally, as liberating as if I had cut off all my hair. It signified a seismic change, even though at first just a small one. It was the realization that I could not only survive the loss of the job (and my subsequent decision to leave that industry entirely if left to my own devices), but that I could continue to find beauty in an ugly stage of my life.

My hair has become a symbol of what life still can be. I smile every time I look at it in the mirror. It has become a really wonderful new way to spend time with my daughter, who doubles as my beautician and now touches up my (still growing) collection of streaks. I still haven’t committed to going full-head color, especially considering that the dye is expensive and streaks are cheaper to keep, but I am committed to the new phase I’m in. I’m keeping my weird. In fact, I’m embracing it.

Since adding the streak, I learned WordPress, started a blog and started writing what I want to write about. Through that, not only am I telling this headhunter clown to continue to bite my ass (sorry, but remember, New Yorker here) but am learning a really marketable skill for any writer (WordPress, CMS, hyperlinks, analytics, etc.) that I didn’t ever handle in my last job.

My streaks are now purple and blue and a combination of faded and brights. I’ve noticed people treat me differently now (and not with disrespect, either, but more with amusement and even the occasional flirting). I’ve noticed I don’t really care any more what anyone thinks about me. And most important, I’ve noticed that my growth continues every day, regardless of the date on my birth certificate, no matter what role my juniors want to relegate me to.

And as I write this, various shades of Manic Panic blues and purples are marinating in little tin foil rollers on the sides of my head, waiting to be rinsed. I have just gotten some freelance writing (due in part to my blogs here, I believe) and I’m no longer afraid of my future. It may not be what I’d imagined, but it’s a hell of a journey nonetheless.