how i've been sad, and now i'm not, and will change my hair

It's been a long week. We moved into a new place, cleaned and rid ourselves of the old place (and the hell noise upstairs), painted our bedroom and the under-the-stairs pantry of our new place, raided IKEA, and brought home our kitty-face Trevor all in the midst of our already work- and show-ridden schedule.

Phew.

It's been interesting, because I actually kind of expected myself to have a total come-apart (or a few) through this process. The last few months have been kind of emotionally trying, for no exact reason that I can put my finger on. It's been a lot of rather crippling anxiety and tears which generally make me feel incapable of, oh, anything. I hated work, I hated our apartment, I hated tech week (am I allowed to admit that?), I hated food (which explains why I couldn't [can't] stop eating it...?), I hated the phone, I hate (still) my hair.

I pretty much spent the majority of February looking like:

hyperboleandahalf

Needless to say, it sucked. Poor Ames. Poor friends. Poor everyone around me.

But the good news is that with March has come a renewed sense of hope and clarity. Maybe it's the impending spring. Maybe it's the mid-life crisis I'm about to have on my hair. Isn't weird how having nice hair changes your whole perspective on life? I mean, really. Call me crazy (I won't be offended because I've seriously been a crazy person lately), but my self-esteem is just through the roof when I have good hair. And since my personality/hormones/environment/schedule has kind of balanced lately, I figure it's time for a big change.

Here's my plan.

I wear a wig in A Tale of Two Cities (playing at Hale Centre Theatre till April 9 Ames and I play TThS buy your tickets HERE you don't want to miss it) that looks like this:

dcsnaps

Maybe it's the opportunity to yell and be really pissed a lot lately that's been so cathartic for my emotions? But that's beside the point. The point is, look at my hair. It is blonde. And I'm in love with/terrified of it. But I get a lot of compliments and it's really starting to grow on me. So I'm going to go through with my previous plans from summer and GO NUTS.

Bring it on, Emily Vancamp.

The question now becomes how to cut it.

Suggestions?

Aside from my impending makeover, I've also had a breakthrough with this little buddy:
At work I've been having a series of treatments which have changed my life so drastically and deserve a post of their own, but I just can't go another minute without mentioning my Alpha-Stim Stress Control System.

LIFE CHANGING.

It's a little electro-therapy stimulator that I just clip to my ears for 20-60 minutes each day and it magically (but not) resets my brain chemistry to not only decrease the number of headaches I get (which is typically a lot), but has also absolutely, 100%, unarguably balanced my anxiety and stress to such a degree, I can hardly explain. It works like this:

I have developed such an ability to handle anxiety and talk myself off cliffs. Of course there are still major stresses in life, but my capacity to just handle it has had a 150% turn-around. Best part is: NO MEDICATION! Even when I'm not exactly happy, I've found that I'm at least just neutral. In the last few weeks I haven't cried for no reason. Guys. It's a miracle. And I don't use the word lightly.

So now that we're into March, the show is open and I have a new lease on life, I'm going to change my look, audition for some more stuff, (finally) start working out again, and snuggle with this guy: