Hair. Yes, That Is All.

Before I really get my hands into this, here's a quick heads up to anyone reading: the following post will be nothing but superficial meanderings that (I think) most people will find filled with ennui. For those people I'd like to give you THIS . At least you can't say that this post was for naught!

Now onto the problem du jour (du year if I'm honest) : my hair. For as long as I can remember my hair has been long and, well, big. If you met anyone I knew and asked them to describe me they would make a gesture around their heads signalling an unusual, perhaps unnatural, mass of tresses that lay about half a foot away from my face and most likely had a bird hiding in it. Well, I never had anything in there other than insane amounts of mousse but my hair could rival the Jackson 5 in their heyday.

I then made the horrendous decision of dyeing my hair. It wouldn't have been the such a horrible thing had it not been for the simple reason that I also relax my hair and the two chemicals seem to have a slight issue with one another. That issue resulting in the most dramatic change I've ever seen happen to me. Back in February of '09 I coloured my hair and all was good until about July or August when I had to get my roots relaxed. To spare you gory details, I'll just fast forward and let you know that I lost more than 50% of my hair.

Now with the other 50% that was still on my head, I tried to retain for as long as I could. I put in clip in extensions, I wore a bun everyday and I even wore head wraps to cover it up when I was out and about. I was holding on so tightly to that hair because I was afraid of one thing: having short hair.

Why I had an aversion to short hair is something I never thought about until I was faced with the ultimatum of either cutting my hair short or looking like a Flock of Seagulls reject. Why did I hate short hair so much? Why was it consuming my thoughts? I knew the reason secretly but I didn't want to come out with it. But I will for you guys: short hair is unsexy to me. And it is unsexy because I believe that men find it unsexy. Yes, I was one of those women who styled themselves to look more appealing to men.

How pathetic. I was pathetic. I think part of me still is if I'm completely honest.

It's not that I don't think short hair looks good on other women, I certainly do. I think it can look super sexy on some women but on myself it was as though I'd be an alien. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had so many hangups about the way I looked except concerning my hair. My hair was always on point and always the envy of many women. I realize now that I used it as a security blanket, as something to fall back on because even if I had a pimple on my nose my hair was still bangin'.

In January, I cut the uneven parts of my hair off and was left with a cute little pixie cut. Not too short but short enough that my hair didn't cover my ears. Since then I've been grappling with the fact that I have the slowest growing hair on the face of the Earth and that everyone seems to think short hair looks good on me. I take their word for it but I can't wait until my long hair makes its return. In the meantime, I'll be steering clear of the hair products aisle at Walmart.