Hair color and retirement: part two

My darling man loves to care for our family, all eighteen of us (five kids, two of whom are married, all of their kids, and our four African kids—yep, eighteen of us). Matt cares for all of us in lots of different ways, including (let’s just call it what it is) making money.

It will surprise no one when I say that family costs a butt-ton of money. It has in the past, it does right now, and it will in the future. Once upon a time, we spent money on tai-kwon-do uniforms and Kinex sets, and then those morphed into laptops and tuition, and then those morphed in wedding dresses and grad school … and it just keeps going, and I doubt it will ever end.

And we are one thousand percent okay with that. Our very non-traditional family has very real needs, and how can we not freely give what we’ve been given? (There’s a whole theology right there in that question. We’d all do well to park on it for a day or two.)

So, to be blunt, Matt brings home the bacon. (I bring home bacon, too, except that my contribution is a bit more like bacon bits.) And sometimes, just once in a while, that causes him just the teeniest bit of stress. Teeniest, I assure you.

Well, maybe not always the teeniest. Which is why, of late, I find him some Sunday afternoons hunched over his desk estimating our retirement income.

I love this man. I love this family of ours. And I love traveling. And I love walking into Palmers and swiping my credit card for a thirty dollar orchid just because I know that shade of purple will make me smile when I walk past it every day. I love having a housekeeper and a dog-walker and a pest control guy. I love caring for our big jumble of a family in every way. Two different sets of Easter eggs for all the kids to hunt, so that the big kids have a challenge and the little kids get to play, too? Duh.

What I don’t love is seeing Matt hunched over his desk estimating our retirement income, one finger on the computer monitor, the other poking a calculator.

So in the Venn diagram in my head, I juggle these two things: changes in the way I see my body and changes in the way I might consider spending money.

And? So?

Maybe I’ll stop coloring my hair.

[Silence]

[More silence]

Here’s the stuff in the middle of my mental Venn diagram: money and fear. A new way to love and a new way to live.

It is quite possible that hair color is dangerous for my health and not all that helpful for the environment. And for real, I spend $150 a month on my hair. That’s $1,800 a year. That’s a no-joke amount of moolah. 

Here is my question: What if there’s an easier way, a better way, towards self love? A way that also shares the burden my man carries? He carries it with love and generosity, but a burden is a burden, you know?

A few days ago, I floated all this out to Matt. It was impossible not to see hope leap into his eyes, hope for less worry, less concern, less planning. And it was also impossible not to hear the love in his voice when he said, “Cute woman. I care not one bit about the color of your hair … except when you care about the color of your hair. And then I care a lot.”

Venn diagrams, confluence of what looks like totally disparate ideas, my sometimes-wild spending, planning for retirement … I don’t know. Are any of these actually important to Jesus?

I think yes.

And I think I might stop coloring my hair.

And I think I might see that option for the fully beautiful, life-giving choice that it is.