Thought For The Evening - The Hair and The Golf
On Friday evening, my husband and I fell out .. a lot. After some harsh words, at 8.30pm, my middle-class protest began. I abandoned my aubergine parmigiana, poured a glass of rosé and went to bed to read Hamnet. “Mummy’s gone mad!!!!!!” was posted on the family group chat. It’s September and unlike last year’s reprieve, extra-curricular activities have returned with a vengeance. Lucy had been called up as goalkeeper for the 2As and she needed dropped off at a hockey pitch the other side of Newtownards at 10am on Saturday morning. I had a hair appointment at 10.10am in Holywood. Russell was playing golf. The battle lines were drawn. “I could drop you there a bit early,” I suggested. “Can we give x and y a lift as well,” she asked. As I contemplated a route around East Belfast to collect bleary-eyed teenagers, Lucy (who takes after her father in terms of forward planning) was slowly realising she had no way of getting back home after the match. I was becoming more and more panicky about my roots. Russell was mentally perfecting his swing.
“It’s been nine weeks. It’s an emergency, I can’t cancel it,” I said. “She’ll just have to wait or get the bus,” he said. (Public transport was not an option. Have you ever seen the size of a goalie kit?). In my head, there was a reasonable solution to all of this and it involved the golf. But with no sign of any backing down, I stomped off up the stairs, resolving to contact the salon first thing to say I couldn’t make it - and then beg for a new appointment, preferably still on the same day.
This situation will be all too familiar to women everywhere. We discussed it semi-maturely on Saturday morning (one of us had a point to make). The eighteen holes had reluctantly been cancelled at the eleventh hour after I was long asleep. “I didn’t expect you to cancel your hair,” he said “Don’t you understand,” I said. “Intention and action are two different things. By not taking ownership, you pinged responsibility back to me”. When this happens, it re-surfaces all the trauma of the childcare years, the stress of being default parent, never ever feeling anything I had in the diary mattered. “I’ve got a meeting,” he would say. I had to drop my plans. Everything of mine was dispensable. Women are taught to put everyone else first, to have servant hearts. It can leave us feeling utterly de-valued.
So, I’ve set out my stall. It’s in the diary. I’ve flagged it everywhere. It’s on the family group chat. There will be regular reminders. I’m putting my hair first. On 16 October, the only thing getting cancelled is my greys. Nothing and I mean nothing is going to stand in the way of my hair!
