After officially having short hair for about two months now– enough time to be comfortable with it, enough space for it to settle in. I know vaguely how to style it, and, on the days it refuses to cooperate with that style, I know to just wrap a headscarf of some description around it and get on with things. Not that it takes a lot of style time– the very best thing about hair this length is the wash’n’go quality of it, how simple and light and easy it is, the fact that I haven’t even plugged my hair straightener into the wall for a couple of months now.
But (and I know how much this is going to disappoint a lot of you) I just… don’t…. love it. It’s OK. It’s not great. Some days I kind of dig it… but I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat back and gone “I am so glad I cut my hair!”
In fact… I can’t wait for it to grow back. I’m looking forward to a messy bun with wispy bits at the side, to hair soft as corn silk brushing my shoulders, to hiding my eyes behind a wall of it to flirt with.
It’s taking it’s precious time about it. Despite growing quicker than it would when it was longer, it’s still most definitely short.
I’m not sure what it is… I think it comes back to that loss of femininity, especially when I have no one but myself to make me feel pretty. I know how terribly unfashionable it is to admit this… but I still want to be the princess. And the princess still has hair all the way to the bottom of the tower.
But, within all that, while I’m not particularly fond of my hair short and I am anxious to have some length in it again– even a pretty bob that sits just at my ears would be lovely– I don’t regret the decision to chop it off.
Can you be not entirely happy with a decision you’ve made and still not regret doing it? I guess so. It was unpleasant. But it felt then, and still feels now, like it was necessary. A ritualistic shedding of the skin. A decision to revoke my own appeal to the opposite sex until I was a bit more whole, a bit more earthed, a bit more sure of who I am now…
Of course it didn’t work that way– does things ever work the way we planned, the way we intend them to? But it was the beginning, the catalyst for some bigger kind of change.
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| When in doubt, wrap fabric over head. |
There’s a feeling that you get at certain points in your life… the inert sense that things are changing, that the general atmosphere of your life is shifting, that some kind of phrase is closing in the cosmos and it will twist the circumstances of your day to day existence just slightly, so they seem the same as before but are so very different.
I know it well, and I remember it occurring at infrequent intervals in the Before; and it being exciting, exhilarating and somewhat uncomfortable.
I feel, right now, the last twelve months, since the first and worst of the shock wore off; as if I’m constantly in shift. It’s not exciting anymore, or exhilarating… it’s just uncomfortable and exhausting and it gives me motion sickness.
I’m not sure if it’s ready to settle yet… but I’m changing again, metamorphosing the way I view the world. Maybe those lenses have been changed again.
It begun with the hair. Change the rules, change the game. (I am totally, unashamedly ripping that off David Lee)
Change the rules. Change the game. Cut your hair… start again.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the short hair. But I think it's perfectly acceptable for you to miss swishing your hair around.
I know exactly what you mean! Over the years I've cut my hair short several times when I've felt a big change for the better coming. It's cathartic. Sort of like a visible way of telling the world you're starting anew
I totally get this. I could never cut my hair short. it's just part of my identity – my "me".
Here's to good change and necessary change and all the electric excitement it brings.
also. feel like I haven't seen you in AGES.
must see you soon. I must.
A word comes to mind: "Shape-shifting"
I get it. I've cut my hair short several times over the years. There's something bold and confident about a short cut, nothing to hide behind. But, then I go and grow it out again. I think it looks super cute, but I'm sure longer will look great too
My hair is just getting to the short bob stage, after having it short for about a year. I do think that changing hairstyles can be a reflection of inner change and growth.
Shit. Don't worry about disappointing us; it's your hair!! I (as a supporter of the soon-to-be-not-as-short-short 'do) am just glad *you're* glad you tried it. Because that kind of change can be, as you said, freeing. Besides. Think of all the cute barrettes and hair clips you'll get use while it's growing out.
… I just loved my comment so much I tweeted it. I don't have daughters. If i did, I'm pretty sure all the "princess play" would annoy the hell out of me.
I like your hair pixie and I like it long. You're a beauty both ways XXX
Don't be a princess Lori.
Be the fucking Queen.
You look beautiful, short or long! Those cheekbones
I Like this … a lot. I totally get it too. xx