Give Me a Head With Hair, Long Beautiful Hair: Part 1

Sometimes hair doesn’t have a part. This one has two.

The before.

I have beautiful hair. There, I said it. I have absolutely beautiful hair. It’s not to my credit, really. I’m just lucky in this one arena.

See what I mean?!

Let me share with you my hair care routine:

• I shower, using whatever shampoo and conditioner or two-in-one (I love you so much, Head & Shoulders 2-in-1) that is available.

• I wring excess water from my hair and wrap it in a towel while I’m dressing for the day

• I use a $10 wet brush and spend about 20 seconds brushing my hair

• I let it air dry and go about my business

I don’t attempt to curl it (because my hair is a petulant child when it comes to holding a curl), I don’t use any product (eh, lazy), and I don’t pull it back into a ponytail unless I’m doing something active (I am highly susceptible to elastic-induced headaches).

This great hair affords me a very low-maintenance lifestyle. I can promise you that if I didn’t have such easy hair, I would probably still do the same routine. I’m just lucky that my hair doesn’t ask for more from me.

Have I always had this awesome, low maintenance hair? Well, yes and no. The hair has always been the same, really, in quality, thickness, and texture. But, there were three occasions that negatively impacted my hair aesthetic.

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1) The crown perm. In 1992 it was en vogue to get a short haircut with some layering. My older sister went to the mall to get her sweet stylish ‘do and I wanted the same. I, however, got a Clue murder scene.

My mom, in the kitchen, with the scissors.

My fine hair didn’t layer much. And my seven-year-old body and tomboyish ways didn’t scream femininity either. I started getting confused for a boy. At the library when a child tried pushing me away from a computer, his mom responded, “No, no, honey, that little boy was there first.” At my brother’s wrestling meet, I went to use the ladies room and one of the high school mat rats shrieked, “Dude! You’re going into the wrong bathroom.”

My mom couldn’t take too much of this, and so she set about fixing it. Enter Cindy. Every mom has a friend that does hair. I think it’s an assignment upon your first child’s birth. The doctor says, “Congratulations, you have a healthy, beautiful baby girl! And a hairdresser named Cindy!”

Cindy, in her kitchen, with the salon kit.

I have vague memories of that day, but when I hear something I don’t understand, it sticks a little more as I file it for further investigation. What I heard in that kitchen was unforgettable. “I think we’ll just give her a crown perm.” Perms were still sort of cool in the early 90s, right? I mean, I wasn’t the coolest kid, so they probably weren’t… but I wasn’t afraid of the word perm because my mom had been getting a perm forever and her hair was gorgeous. What could go wrong?

This school picture is now making annual appearances on my mother’s Christmas tree. That’s what.

Oh, and that Halloween, while trick-or-treating at a family friend’s place, the treat-giver said, “You look so much like your grandma!” and meant it in the way that I looked like a creepy little seven-year-old septuagenarian.

2) The bird’s nest. The fact is, I was a total scrub as a kid. Even as my hair recovered from the crown perm, I wasn’t taking care of it. I basically would go to bed with wet hair and never brush it. My hair as an elementary kid looked in the back as if it were also an avian homestead.

3) Mama louse. Ok, so I grew up and started taking better care of my hair. But, do you want to know the disadvantage of hair that is objectively beautiful, fine, and easy to maintain? Lice love it. Twice (twice!) in my adult life I have had lice (both times on trips to Europe, actually). The first time this happened was when I was 20, studying in Denmark. My head had been itching for a probably a week, but I thought maybe it was the Scandinavian shampoo. While studying my Statistical Quality Control book (#enginerdsohard) and concurrently scratching that itch, it fell into the crease of my textbook: THE MAMA LOUSE. The big, ugly mama louse. I trapped her with a shot glass and panicked. I asked my Danish dorm-mates how to say lice in Danish. The pharmacist laughed at me and told me I don’t have fleas (thanks Danish dorm-mates). I called my friend who was living in London at the time but coming to visit me that very lice-infested weekend. She brought British-grade chemical lice killer.

My hair was way too long at the time (low maintenance for my hair also means I wasn’t really getting haircuts as often as I should have). I couldn’t imagine combing, or having Margaret carefully comb through all of that hair looking for offspring. I showed her a picture of shoulder length hair and she did her best.

Margaret, in my dorm room, with the scissors.

It ended up a little high in the back. After the chop and subsequent lice treatment, we went to a salon to fix it up for real. They couldn’t do much to even it out except for this:

(Note: The second time I acquired lice, I struggled with combing the nits rather than another hair chop.)

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Mama louse and crown perm are the only events that have driven me to short hair in my life. Until now.

I have decided, after much careful deliberation, to shave my head.

Shave.My.Head.

I’ve pondered it for several years, including to a man to whom I got engaged and then later disengaged, and he (with questionable sincerity) told me that he couldn’t be with me if I shaved my head. I tabled it.

Now, though, seems like the perfect time. I’m insatiably curious. I really want to know what it will feel like to have a shaved head, and then to grow out my hair from the beginning with all the awesome and awkward hairstyles it will afford me along the way. I want to feel how people respond to me differently. I want to see how my identity is impacted by this one thing, that really is just the severance of a relationship with dead cells. I want to have hair that isn’t, perhaps, objectively beautiful. What does it feel like?

What am I afraid of?

A few things…

• Attractiveness. That feels like a vulnerable thing to write, that my attractiveness matters to me. I’m not overly conceited about my looks, but as a human, I am loss averse. I’ve spent a lot of time building this nice safe room of self-love to live in, but how fragile is it when I start to dislike the way I look? And maybe I won’t—maybe I’ll adore my look(s) with shorter hair. But if I don’t, how much of an impact will it have to not feel attractive?

• Femininity. Since I started dating women a few years ago, it’s had an unexpected impact on my sense of femininity. Things that I once felt were “cool” parts of me, now feel masculine or stereotypical (liking sports, wearing hats, etc.). I’m afraid that my long hair is one clear remaining indicator of my womanhood, and I’m giving it up.

• Familiarity. I’m afraid I’ll look in the mirror and won’t be able to feel at home with myself, which would be ok if I were living in a world of familiarity, but I’ll now be traveling through a year-and-a-half of foreign and unfamiliar things. I will look outside myself and at myself and not see something that feels like home. How long does it take to feel like home in a new house?

• Relationship. I’m cautious about the impact to my own relationship. I’m afraid Heather will lose attraction for me. I’m afraid I may take on new insecurity regardless, which could cause a disruption of her attraction to me that actually isn’t about the hair, but is as real. How will we get through the long time with the short hair?

• The unexpected. And then, there’s everything else. Will I get poorer treatment? Will Heather and I face any discrimination traveling as a perhaps more obviously LGBT couple? Will people think I’m sick, treat me like I’m sick, and will I start to believe them? Will I get tired of two years of short hair and regret this risk more than relish it?What else will come up for me that I can’t even think of?

It’s a lot to ponder. And I have been. This isn’t an on the whim decision, but it will feel like a very drastic one—despite all planning and pondering—once it happens.

How will I feel?

The cut happens Thursday, September 19th. Tune in to find out.