#trythis8.3

When I was in like 3rd grade I think, I told my mom I wanted to cut my hair short. I didn’t like my long hair. I hated brushing it, washing it, and never did anything with it. So I cut my hair short, and I still didn’t do anything with it. It still looked bad. Lol

My mom has beautiful curly hair, but she hates it. I did not get her curly locks, but sometimes when it’s humid my hair will curl. She LOVES when my hair curls on those days. If only she would appreciate those curls on her own head, but she straightens it everyday.

The first incident that I have is the time that I cut my hair. When I was just a small infant, I got ahold of safety scissors and cut a big strand of hair out of my head. I had to go straight to the hair lady in order to get it fixed. 

The second incident that I have is with a different spelling of hare. Hare, also known as a rabbit, I won at a fair once. I was going to the game where you throw the balls into the water and then if you hit the one right in the middle then you win the bunny and I won the bunny. I was so sad to have to settle for a stuffed animal.

I was almost there. Teetering on my stack of books and pillows and other things that were definitely not safe, I had almost succeeded in my mission: grabbing the scissors from the top of the fridge. Once I had retrieved them, I wasted no time. Not even bothering to find a mirror, I started chopping away my golden locks. I hated having long hair; my bowl cut was my signature look (of course, at age four I did not know any difference). By the time my grandmother found me, it was too late for my hair. Shredded and laying in clumps on the floor, it was a goner. Meanwhile, I looked like I had taken a chainsaw to my scalp, and I mean this in the nicest way. Patchy and slightly bald, four year old me was shimmering in pride. “Look at my haircut! I want to be a ‘hair cutter’ one day!” 

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Flash forward three years. My hair was super long, blond, and beautiful. I was going in for my first haircut since a poor hairdresser had the challenge of my four year old hackjob. I wanted something new and ‘cool’. Which to me, meant flipping to a random page in a magazine and getting that exact haircut. *sigh* Luckily for me, though, it was a cute chin-bob. However, when it was done, I hated it. I cried and cried, making the poor hairdresser feel bad. (I don’t know why younger me seemed to have had a vengeance against hairdressers, the poor ladies!) Since then, my hair has never been as long as it was before that haircut. 

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I don’t think I have ever gone through an early-life crisis without accompanying it with a drastic hair change; I have had purple hair, red hair, brown hair, many cuts with bangs, a pixie cut (which I loved), I have lightened my hair, cut it myself (no, I did not learn from when I was four), and so much more. My hair and I have a love-hate relationship—I hate the way it looks, so I change it. Constantly. However, I think I may just get bored of stagnation; I constantly need change. I can put this need into my hair; thus, never allowing myself to have a boring style. Even now I am thinking of my next hair adventure. 

For as long as I can remember, my hair has always been long. Long hair as ran in my family, on both my mother’s side and my father’s side for many generations. My dad recently started losing his hair. Knowing one day, that I could be next, I have decided to take extra steps to hopefully slow down the passage of time and to keep the mane that is my long hair. My dad always teases me about it now, which I have worked so hard and dealt with the consequences of long hair.

My son, Raymond, has this uncanny ability that whatever he does, someone’s hair is involved, mainly mine. Playing on the floor, my hair always ends up underneath him. Many times I have ripped out numerous strands of hair from my head with destructive results. One of the consequences with long hair and a child that spends most of his time rolling around on the floor.

My mother had gotten a bob and like most little girls I wanted to copy my mother. So the stylist started with one side and as she cut my wavy hair became curlier and curlier. She stopped, it was not yet near short enough to be a bob, but she called to my mother and said “I don’t think we should go much shorter.” I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation that followed. All I remember is for my first grade pictures, I had a blonde shirley temple head.

My dad had been going bald for years, he wore one of those partial wigs on the top, so people didn’t notice. I don’t remember how old I was, but one year for his birthday I gave him a haircut. Shaved all that was left of his hair off. He has kept the bald hair since. I love painting things on it, a bald head makes for a great canvas.

I don't quite remember the year, but I think I was in middle school. We wanted to see if we could permanently straighten my hair. I think it was because all I ever did with it was pull it back, we had long since stopped trying to style it. Though my mom kept insisting on brushing it, but that only ever made it worse. Don’t remember how long it took, only that I was bored. And as soon as it even got a little humidity on it, the curls came back. My mother was not pleased, called it a scam for how much money they wanted for something that did nothing.

When I was five or six years old, I decided to play hairdresser with my favorite plastic comb. At the time, I had had maybe one haircut in my entire life. I had already developed a strong sense of self/independence, and paramount in that development was my reluctance to ask others for help. I remembered seeing a woman with her hair up in curlers on television, and I was determined to replicate the look. I took the comb and wound it up into my hair until it was pinned against my scalp. My feeling of pride didn’t last long, as I soon realized the large, pink teeth were hopelessly entangled in my curls. Stubborn as ever, I marched into the kitchen for a pair of scissors and proceeded to cut the comb from my hair. That year, nearly every photo of me consisted of a large, orange puff where the hair had once been, including my school picture.

With my teenage years came a long-suffering saga of different hair colors and styles. What started with a few temporary dip dyes soon grew into something more as I came to terms with my gender identity. A single trip to the hair salon turned waist-length red curls into a straight, black pixie cut. My hair remained more-or-less this short for the next five years.

When I was about seven, I decided to give my three-year-old sister a haircut. Oddly, it did not occur to me that my parents would be pissed until after my first cut. I stopped and hid the tuft of hair under the couch. Several months pass and my mom notices the missing hair; she doesn’t ask me about it, but she knew. One day, she is moving furniture and finds it. When she comes to tell me, I start crying uncontrollably, she just laughed.

 In middle school, I went through a phase where I refused to cut my hair. I had recently gotten very into anime, so I guess I wanted “anime hair” but I was too lazy to actually make it look good. I just had big, long hair or, as my friends referred to it, “the mop.”

“To here,” I say, motioning right below my ears. The stylist started cutting, and I was out in no time. 

“Wow,” My mom gasped, “You chose that length on your own?”

It’s what grandma wants. I think as I nod. She always wanted me in short hair. She said it’s nicer and always told stories of ladies she worked with having headaches because their hair was so long. Yet... I had my babysitters, whose hair dragged behind them on the floor whenever it was down, and they never complained.

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It was a little while after Tangled came out, and she quickly became one of my favorite princesses. She liked to read and do art which I loved as well. I also found her hair absolutely beautiful. It was a nice blonde shade - a shade that I had when I was younger, but now my hair is a mix of dirty blonde and a medium brown. But I wished for the length (though of course not THAT long). It was at this time I refused to cut my hair short anymore. Whenever I went in for a haircut, I only took off a couple inches at most. 

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Nowadays, my hair isn’t so much a big deal. I’ve cut it short once again, and am letting it grow out. I’ve only being dying my hair with blonde highlights/ balayages, but wish to dye it blue once more. I take care of my hair the best I can - though I know of some products I need to buy to fix my hair a little more.