Stepping Back

Today I did my hair in a bun! Surprise! I do my hair in a bun nearly every day. In fact, today was the fourth bun in a row this week. I think Monday was a ponytail. But today, I reached back into the deep and distant past that most of you don't know, and pulled from it a hairstyle I haven't sported since my earlier high school days: the complex braided bun. I think only two people in my readership know I mean by that. Let me assure them, it was a simple one, not one of those crazy eight-braid, four twist, strung together with ribbons and old-fashioned yarn kind. You see, I used to be the queen of buns. I had long, perfectly straight hair, and I could do buns with twists down the sides, buns with braids down the sides, buns with ribbons, buns made up of old fashioned brades that looked like woven hair, big buns made of little braids, etc. So today, as I searched for a hairstyle I could wear that wasn't my usual bun, I suddenly remembered, that, if anyone knows how to do a bun, it's me. So I quickly whipped up a couple of braids and twisted them into a bun, feeling much better. Of course no one noticed. Let's be honest, there's actually not that much difference between a braided bun and a regular twisted one. But still, it felt nice to do something different. And like I was channeling a previous edition of me for a few minutes there.

Last night I went to a choir concert. I think I may have forgotten what a renewing experience a beautiful live concert can be. By the end, I felt like I had gotten some kind of emotional tune up, and some of the blockages and grime that were backing up my system were simply dissolved away. It was like stepping into the past, when I used to go to things like that all the time.

Tonight I made another smart decision that I probably wouldn't have made a few years ago, way to go me! That's a step forward. But then I found myself on a rickety set of wooden stairs way past my bedtime having a conversation that was nearly identical to more than one conversation I've had in the past. The same reasons, the same lines, the same reaction. Years pass and people in my life come and go, and yet I can't really say how many times I've had this same conversation. Four? Five?

There's a line from a Rush song that goes: The more things change, the more they stay the same.