my mom told me when i was younger that she had some kind of color blindness; she couldn’t ever specify the type apart from she couldn’t tell shades of blue apart, as she had worked at a laundromat that used tickets of various shades and she always mixed them up. at some point i lost belief in her color blindness because that’s what you do as you get older: you understand your parents are people too, just random people who came together to make you. i think i lost the belief that my parents were always right or had some serious higher wisdom that made their actions right. also it doesn’t make sense—most colorblind people can see shades of blue, and that’s the only color she remarked on having difficulty seeing.
i remember the first time i dyed my hair a real color, or one that my mom noticed at least. i had cut my hair short and dyed it a dark brownish red, but that wasn’t much. i dyed the underside light pink but she never commented on it. but the night i dyed it blue, truthfully so i could put my pink dye on top and get the correct shade of purple, but i couldn’t hide it. i came out in a beanie w my hair tucked in and she gusssed correctly that it was a forbidden color. i just locked myself in the bathroom while i took a bath and tried to decide how to cope w her, while she stood outside the door and yelled that this isn’t how she raised me. which is true, unlike most of the threats she conjures. but i just kept dying my hair from there and tried to keep my back to the way she felt abt my appearance.
i’m dying my hair now, posted up with my double mirrors so i can see the back of my head, and i’m frustrated with all the warm and cool tones in my hair. i know id look better w winter tones bc im pale as shit, so i should stick with a cool toned blue, but i love a rich cyan that usually just bleeds out to green. i find that ive covered most of my head in ocean-like blues that wash out too quickly, and i have a deep love-hate relationship w it now. i find myself hunched over critiquing and remember that if my mom was right, and in her long line of silly threats and statements that fall right through she *actually* has some kind of one in a million blue-shade color blindness, then she likely will never get to appreciate all the blues in my hair that i spend so much time tediously manipulating.