EXTREME MAKEOVER
Prompt - Extreme Makeover : Imagine how life might be different if you could change your hair colour or clothing into something completely opposite from your current style.
'You learn who your real friends are.' He'd had that said to him, many times over, when Alice had died. Because once your life partner was gone, and you had suddenly to rely on yourself totally, it soon became clear who were the people who'd give support, understanding, patience... and those who quickly found it all too tedious to bother with. Time was the key. It was easy to be sympathetic when it happened, at the funeral, for a few weeks after... but the hurt lasted, was going to last, much longer. Much much longer.
So it didn't take long to become clear which voices faded away and which stayed the course. Who was still around for you when you needed someone, anyone, to help make the huge gap in your life that bit smaller. I thank those people with every part of me, but now I've given them a bigger test.
Six months had passed, and I was about to turn seventy three. I've always treated life as a series of phases, and with each major change I asked myself 'how do I make the best of the next phase?'. Losing Alice was the toughest change of all, and the one that made it hardest to answer that question. But it had to be faced. She was gone, I was still here. Still healthy, and solvent, enough to do things I wanted to do. But also knowing there might not be many phases left - so I better make the most of this one. What did I want my life to be?
Different. I wanted to be different. Seventy years of playing safe, it was time to be someone else. So I told everyone I was getting away for three of weeks and...
First stop, the salon Alice always used, and was waaay too pricey for me. Told the boss man what i wanted. Yes, I was sure. Yes, really sure, just do it. So he did. Then I went to the shop three doors down and spent a long time looking through their designs, talking about the best places and how painful each might be. I made my choice. Correction - choices. I got three, on three consecutive days. Meanwhile there was other shopping to be done, online and in the real world. And, at home, stuff to throw out. I never had any doubts. Well, not many.
I arranged to meet Janet, Alice's best pal, for a coffee. Kindly, but always honest, and just way out enough. She was a good one to try the new me out on. I got to the cafe first, ordered myself a drink, and sat at one of the pavement tables to await her. There she was, a smart, petite seventy year old with long grey hair and a purple jacket. She was looking for me. She walked past me.
"Janet." She turned on the doorstep, surveyed the tables. Looked again. "Hi" I said when she was looking straight at me. She continued to look. "Yeah, it is me." She continued to look.
"Ronnie?" I nodded. "Really?" I nodded a bit faster. Pulled out the chair beside me.
"What would you like? I'll go order." She sat, still looking. Up and down, open mouthed.
"Latte"
I walked in for her drink, slowly so she got a better chance to take it all in. Might as well get the full verdict. When I returned she'd reassembled her features into something like a smile and began the interrogation. Yes, I did intend to look like this, yes I had asked for the hair, what was left of it, to be blonde and spikey, yes that really was a tattoo and there were a couple more, and yes, I intended to dress like this and it wasn't for a bet.
"Why?"
"Why not? I wanted to be a different me for whatever comes now. It helps me realise that this is a new life, a life without Alice."
"That... almost makes sense." And she smiled, for the first time since she sat down. Looked again at my hair, my clean shaven old face, bareed fully for the first time in four and bit decades, the heart tattoo on my forearm, with 'Alice' running through it, and the outfit. Tweed gilet over a Gandalf tee, electric blue kilt and biker boots. "When do I get to see the other tats?"
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