Gimme a Head with Hair

Someone here changed her hair AGAIN!*

Which, whatever. Are you bored with my hair stories yet?  Are you thinking, “Good God, woman, for someone who claims not to be very vain, you’ve been going on and on about the hair for, like, a year. And there are WAY more interesting things for you to be nattering on about. Like your obsession with Henry Rollins, which you’ve barely TOUCHED on.  Or the fact that you continue to think Ramen is delicious.”

You’d have a point.

But I love to mess with my hair. I love it. Even though my mom does not. (“God gave you really pretty hair,” she says. “Why do you have to change the colour?” “Um, God also allowed for the invention of hair dye?”)

Anyway.

The beauty of messing with the hairs is that, from a technical standpoint, anything you do to your hair is temporary. Even permanent colour is temporary, because hair keeps growing. Hate it? Cut it. Or grow it.* Or whatever it.  It doesn’t matter. It’s a chance to play with who you are and what you look like.

I think that’s why I keep messing with mine: it’s a chance to play with identity and with perception. This is who I am today. It might be different tomorrow. I don’t know. But I know this: I’m not bored, and I’m not boring, and most of us take ourselves much too seriously anyway.

At least, I do.

So to the gentleman who, after seeing that I’d chopped all of my hair off in the first place, said: “Men like women with long hair,” I would say this: “None of the men who are into me care if I even HAVE hair. The hair isn’t the point.”

To the woman who told me I look like a lesbian with this haircut, I would say this: “Can you get me the lesbian conduct code that identifies this are part of the uniform? And also?  Why is that a bad thing?”

To the friend who said “I don’t have the courage to cut my hair that short,” I would say this: “Courage is required for battlefields and impossible situations. This is just hair.”

Because it IS just hair.  My hair. And it doesn’t matter if anyone thinks it’s too short or too long or too red or too spikey or too whatever as long as I love it. As long as I can look at it and smile.

Maybe hair isn't your thing. It doesn't have to be. But you should have something -- big or small, significant or not -- in your life that makes you happy. That you can mess with and change and walk around with, something that lets people know how you see yourself, and how you wish to be seen. I have a friend who wears hysterically snarky t shirts. That's his deal. I have a friend who's into body modification -- a little less temporary, perhaps, but no less fabulous a way to identify herself as unique and beautiful.

Find your freak flag and let it fly, I say.

And make sure you don’t take yourself too seriously. Life is meant to be enjoyed, after all.

*Yes, I know, you want a picture. Maybe tomorrow? I have no time today! I barely got this post out!

**Unless you’re me, in which case your super fabulous hairdresser is so happy with your short hair that she will never let you grow it again.