the oddity of hair

Why are we so attached to our hair? Most people I know (the ones who still have hair anyway) are extremely particular about their hair and how it looks and how it is cut. I am no exception.

I realized recently - again - that my hair is an important extension of my personality. I haven't really felt like myself lately, not as confident, not as bold, not as "together" and it has made it difficult to be on the job hunt. It's really hard to tell people how fantastic you are when you aren't convinced of that fact yourself. I have spent a little bit of time over the last week or so thinking about this and wondering what it is that I am missing right now.

And then it hit me. As I have been feeling just a little off, not fully myself, lacking confidence, etc. I have also been complaining about my hair. I decided a few weeks ago that I might try to let it grow out again. I do this every couple of years and it never really goes very well ... I'm not sure why I keep trying.

Anyway, I got a trim but told the lady I was thinking about letting it grow so keep the length and just clean it up. Wrong. Very wrong. When my hair gets a little longer, it becomes more calm, more plain, easier to hide behind because it starts to cover my face. The simple truth is that I am not plain, I often appear to be calm but I'm not really calm. And I don't like to hide, I like to put myself out there, head high, eyes unobstructed. That's where my confidence comes from.

On one of my many misguided attempts to let my hair grow someone sadly said to me, "awww, no more hair with character." Hair with character. I like that.

So, this morning I got my hair cut. I told the lady that I need to be me again. Plain, calm hair is not me. I also told her that I would like to keep some length (i.e. longer than buzz-cut short hair because a little bit of hair on my head is necessary so my head doesn't look like a tiny little dot on top of my admittedly voluminous body).

Her definition of "some length" and mine are different.

Good thing hair grows - when you have it that is.

I will have hair with character when it grows a bit. So, in about 2 or 3 weeks. Until then, I just have very very little hair. No hiding now!