I have a bad habit of cutting my hair whenever I’m drowning in stress.
There’s this little voice in my head that says, damn, you’re in a shitty mood. Maybe cutting an inch off would help.
So I take its advice and grab the kitchen scissor and lock myself in the bathroom for the next forty-five minutes.
For the first few days, I feel great. My head is lighter and I’m feelin’ good about myself! Then I notice that it isn’t even in the back. And the sides aren’t the same length.
So I try to correct it, but I only make it worse. And now it’s even shorter than I intended. Gosh darn it, I look like a boy!
I force myself to hide the scissors and let it grow out for the next few months.
Then I do it all again.
I let my hair grow out an entire foot before finally letting a professional cut it for the first time in four years. I felt uneasy about parting with it- my long hair had been the recipient of so many compliments.
“Victoria?” A middle-aged man called from the counter of Great Clips one Friday afternoon.
I got up and followed him to the chair.
You can still back out, you know, My brain told me. You don’t want to do this, trust me, you’ve worked so hard to grow it out this lo-
“My name is Robert,” The man told me, already brushing the tangles from my hair being in a ponytail all day. “What’s the plan for today?”
Nice going, Victoria. You’re on your own.
“Um, let’s chop it all off. Like above my neck.” Go hard or go home, right? Maybe it was time to start fresh.
He looked at me surprised. “That’s a big change, let’s start with something smaller, and if you’re happy, we will cut off more. How does that sound?”
I found myself nodding as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I could imagine what I would look like with short hair. It had been so long.
Robert kept cooing over my hair. “Beautiful, beautiful,” he kept saying. “Is this your natural color?”
“It is, and I’ve never dyed it. I like it’s natural color the most,” I told him.
“Absolutely beautiful. Are your curls natural as well?”
“Yep!”
Throughout the haircut, he asked me about school, and I told him about my move.
I had moved to Washington a year and a half ago, one of the hardest things I had ever done. I told him about my friends in Colorado, and the mindset I decided I’d hold onto when I first started at Bainbridge High.
“You know, eventually I realized that the move wasn’t some weird dream and I actually would have to go to school with these people for the next three years, you know? They’re going to be a part of my life for the next three years whether I like it or not, I might as well just make the best of it.
“I don’t have to like all of them and thank God for that because I don’t. And not all of them like me either, which is okay with me because that lets me know where I stand.
“And life continues, you know? Like I wrestle, I run, I’m in the band, I like my teachers, I get along with most of my classmates, whatever. I’m happy, which is something I never thought could happen two years ago when I first found out we were moving.”
I let out a breath. That was a lot. It was the truth, and I know I’d say the same thing to anyone else who asked, but it was still a lot to say to a stranger I met ten minutes ago.
“I like the down-to-earth-ness you have, It’s refreshing. You probably get that a lot, don’t you?”
I shrugged. I mean, sure people like me well enough and most of my friend’s parents like me, but that’s it.
“All right, this is the first idea, do you like the length? Because your hair is still damp, it will still be past your shoulders when it dries. Not quite this long, but still past your shoulders.”
I ran a hand through my hair. I liked it, but it was the same length as every cheerleader’s hair in my grade. “You know, let’s go shorter,” I heard myself saying before I could think about whether I actually wanted to.
Oh well. It’s just hair anyways.
“Maybe like another two and a half inches? So that it’s like right at my shoulders. Or like a little past my shoulders. Oh, can we thin it too? It’s a lot to deal with sometimes.”
(Talk about understatements…)
He pinned a third of my hair to the top of my hair and continued walking me through the process of how he was going to thin my hair.
Ten minutes and two and a half inches later, he announced he was finished. I looked at the floor and couldn’t help but grin at all of the fallen hair. My hair.
“That’s not even all of it,” Robert chuckled. “Someone swept a while ago in the middle of your haircut.”
“Surprise!” My mom’s reaction was minimal.
“I thought you were just going to go for a trim.”
I shrugged. “I guess I changed my mind.”
I miss my long hair, and there are days where I still get frustrated with my short hair. It’s not long enough to stay in a ponytail during wrestling, but it’s too long for pigtails.
But it’s also exhilarating having short hair. I feel freer, and it reminds me that I am more than just my hair. My worth is not in my hair. Knowing the phrase “messy hair, don’t care” is something that I am an example of is empowering.
In a world we judge everyone by looks at first sight in, I love being able to take pride in knowing that giving a fuck about other people’s opinions of me is not my top priority.
