The Unintended...

"Your usual five inches" he says as he picks up his comb and runs it through my hair. 
I laugh... "Yes, the usual." I am confident that we both know that I never have five inches cut off my hair; that the weight helps control the curl. 
he cuts and snips and I relax knowing that I will love my hair when he is done. 
No time for a styling tonight - I am in a rush to pick up the ballerina after her class so my hair isn't dried and I leave without having any idea as to how it will look until...
A few hours later I realize that it is quite a bit shorter; quite a bit more curly; and quite a bit lighter. 
It is only the next morning that I realize just how much the weight of my hair controled the curls.
I look at myself in the mirror at work... Poof... there is no other way to describe my hair.  No frizz (thankfully) and all... poof. 
By the time I wake Sunday morning I have large, loopy, soft ringlets and hair that quickly loosens and falls from my french braid. 
Change - It seems that this year (and much of this blog of late - have centered around change. 
In the last few months, I have faced unemployment twice, experienced my grandfather having another stroke and most recently he started having seizures ; my little girl has started reminding me that she isn't so little anymore...Change... As that not so little girl points out fairly regularly, nohting stays the same - everything changes moment to moment.  She is right in that everything is altered; we can't return or pretend that everything remains static. 
This weekend I listened to "This I believe" while catching up on podcasts.  One of the men observed that we often find ourselves in the midst of change (of the more obvious sort) and beleive that life beyond that point will be miserable or something worse than it would ahve been otherwise.  yet, in a blink of an eye we often come to realize that the change was a blessing and because of it we are more and better than we were before. 
And how did I get from an unexpectedly short ahir style to life changes?
Well, I would never go in and ask for shorter hair.  Not that it isn't fitting on some, but it is never the way I see myself... and yet, here I sit with shorter and quite curly hair.  I never thought to hate it or be angry with my stylist.  Rather, I had to laugh.  Just one more delightful change of the unexpected and unintended variety. 
My daughter recently executed a class project in which she had to note her memories and then chart them on a scale of posative 5 to negative 5.  For the sake of entertainment, she had me do this exercise too.  Interestingly, there were memories or events (big changes) in my life that I found I couldn't score beyond the baseline - 0.  They were neither posative or negative, they just were.  In many cases, the event was difficult in itself, but the person I am... well, the unintended change turned into an amazing blessing.  From the birth of my daughter (totally unintended and a completely wonderful blessing) to the end of my relationship with her father (painful at the time but a signficant blessing and a powerfully eye opening experience). 
Change... the simple, the challenging... the planned... the unintended... the unexpected. 
I choose to see change as a blessing...
Even when it means signficantly shorter and much curlier hair!!