Hair Takes Much Less Time To Fix Than A Broken Heart

There’s something about your first real heartbreak that causes you to suddenly drop every bit of advice anyone has ever shared with you. I never believed I would actually be like this until my most recent breakup resulted in my first actual heartbreak. I’m about to tell you how this led to painfully becoming my ex boyfriend’s booty call, followed by having bright purple hair for the first time.

Although it was a short relationship, it was intense and exhilarating, unlike anything I had experienced before. He set the pace from day one and I followed suit, staying up texting until 2am, graciously receiving flower deliveries to work and traveling on a last-minute tropical vacation that he insisted upon paying for. I was 110% confident I was living a real-life season of The Bachelorette, except I didn’t have to choose between guys. It was everything I had dreamed of.

As time went on and we began really digging deep into each other’s hearts, I realized that relationships aren’t only about eating good food, drinking wine and going on vacation. (Talk about a buzzkill!) So as we uncovered our differences, we were still able to point out the positive aspects to our relationship and feel grateful for those things, however, they didn’t seem to outweigh the problems that would most likely develop from all the ways we weren’t compatible.

Suddenly, all of our differences became an obvious distraction from the fairytale we had been living.

The late night texting turned into arguments, the flowers stopped showing up, and the next trip we had planned was canceled. Just like that, my dream guy quit pursuing me. The possibility of a greater heartbreak was too scary for him to allow me to be worth the risk. In a battle between the heart and brain, he chose the brain and I was clinging to the heart.

Although we knew our differences would be an issue in the future, our feelings were still strongly present. After a couple weeks we began texting late at night again, meeting up for drinks and having more sleepovers than we had when we were actually a couple. It was like the no-pressure version of dating, but always resulted in torture to my heart the next day. But somehow I allowed myself to go through it over and over again because the happiness I felt when we were together was greater than the sadness I experienced the next day.

But here’s the reality: He wasn’t texting me throughout the day to see how I was doing. He wasn’t sending flowers. He wasn’t planning anything for the future. Yet somehow we both still managed to become guilty of continuing to communicate, always giving in to the urge to drunk text the other person because we knew we would always get a response.

Every friend I’ve ever had would tell me this wasn’t a good idea, but I didn’t care.

I couldn’t help but start having thoughts of when we had first met, daydreaming of things being able to go back to the way they were when we were planning our next adventure, excited to make everyone jealous of our spontaneous actions. But things were never going to be the way they were and I suddenly realized that it wasn’t necessarily him that I missed, but the way it felt to have met someone who understood me and made me feel like one in a million. And you know what? I know I can feel that way again, with someone else.

So just like that, we cut ties. I changed my hair color just as quickly as he stopped pursuing me. Suddenly I became this girl with bright purple hair who somehow resisted the urge to talk to her ex every single day. I knew that continuing to set myself up for heartbreak would be worse than trying to get over it, but it’s still the biggest struggle I face each and every day.

My purple hair lasted way less time than my broken heart, but I have to admit that it was fun to spend a month feeling like a different person. I might be back to my natural-looking hair color, but believe me when I say hair takes much less time to fix than a broken heart.