hair philosophy

i got a haircut just the other day. normally, it is pretty uneventful. i decide to get a haircut, set an appointment with tito albert, show up for said appointment, leave feeling very much like the same old me. you see, i'd always had long hair. and up until the other day, hair cuts really were just hair trims. maybe 2 inches is too much. take off an inch and three quarters. is that just an inch and three quarters? it looks longer to me. my hair doesn't look too short, does it? it's fine? you can't even tell the difference? ok. phew.

the other day, however, was different. not my usual inch and three quarters, but a foot. i, who have always always had long hair, could suddenly feel the breeze on my neck. the decision to do it was long and dramatic. i told my family. i told my friends. i told my boyfriend. i told even my newest acquaintances. dan, my boyfriend was the most eager, sending me links of different short hairstyles i might like. my dad was instantly open to the idea. my mom needed a little convincing but she eventually decided it would be a good thing. my friend, sam, showed her support on my facebook wall. everyone else kept asking are you sure about this? how short? THAT short? i can't really picture you with short hair. i'm sure it'll be... fiiiine, but think it through, ok?

and i did. i thought it through. perhaps i may have even thought it through too much. something about hair does that to you. an ear is just an ear. a nose is just a nose. an elbow is just an elbow. a foot is just a foot. hair is never JUST hair. when natalie portman shaved her head for V for vendetta, we said to ourselves, she MUST be a serious actress to go that far for a role. when britney did the same, we all thought (rightly, it seems) that she had not only lost her hair but her mind. keri russell chopped off her locks and felicity tanked. ashlee simpson dyed hers black and suddenly, she was no longer jessica's sister; she was her own person. sports teams get the same hairstyles as a sign of camaraderie. sons shave off all their hair to feel one with their moms who are losing theirs from chemo. heck, even rapunzel found the love of her life because she decided to grow her hair long.

my point is, hair has become this all encompassing symbol of many things to many people. it is not just an extension of our scalps, but of our minds, our hearts, ourselves, and our loves. am i listening to myself right now? i am doing exactly what society does about hair. we philosophize about it.

naturally, that's what i did pre-haircut. it went from, will short hair make my face look fat to: will short hair change how strangers perceive me and will short hair make people take me more/less seriously? i decided that what is considered conventionally beautiful was long hair. (name one shampoo commercial featuring short-haired girls. people with short hair may not use as much shampoo, but they use it nonetheless, you know?) i took it even further. i said to myself that getting a haircut would mean that i have freed myself from caring about whether people think i'm attractive or not. and then all of a sudden, it was a challenge. am i brave enough to do it?

and so i did it. at then end, it was no longer a question of whether i was sick of my long hair and wanted a shorter cut for a change (what i've been telling people). i did it just to prove to myself that i COULD do it. and when it was over, well, it was, quite frankly, anti-climactic. i had short hair and that's all there was to it. i thought about the different steps i used to go through to get a hair trim and realized that although the first and final stages were a little more drawn out this time, at the heart of it, it was all the same. i decide to get a haircut, set an appointment with tito albert, show up for said appointment, leave after an hour feeling very much like the same old me.