As free as my hair

The author rockin her new cut for 2024.

​“I want to cut my hair off!”

My excited voice entered the salon a beat before I did. Michael was a bit surprised to see me as I had just been there a week ago touching up my roots to keep my tresses gypsy dark. He paused in what he was doing and smiled. 

“Do you mind if I sit until you have a sec?” I asked a little more hesitantly. “I have inspiration pics and want to hear your thoughts.”

He waved me to a chair while he went back to cutting. And as I sat there fidgeting, I thought “Am I really going to do this?”

I have a deep attachment to my hair. When I was a kid, it was a golden brown wavy thick mass. Ironic considering I was bald at my first birthday. Family legend has it a bow was pasted to my head so that people would know I was a girl. As though it mattered to a one year old what others thought.

At some point in my early elementary years, my hair was cut off into an ugly bowl shape. No idea why, and I remember being really upset by this. But then it grew out again. As I got older I kept it long until the day my dad took me for a trim at the salon.

The gum chewing girl was gossiping away with the stylist next to her when I heard “Oh shit”. I came out of my daydreaming to see my long locks had been hacked off accidentally as she laughed at something her friend said. I cried for weeks.

​I cut my hair in high school as an act of defiance. Only it ended up not being so rebellious because my mom overrode my style choice. Her pick wasn’t as cute, and then she berated me about it all year. 

“Boys” she said knowingly “will never like you with your little round face and no hair.” 

No one had asked me if I wanted boys to like me, and I had never thought my face was little and round. But she constantly made comments about my looks and weight - even though I was never overweight. 

And she was the one who would push me in front of guys whenever we were out. It was expected that I would be some kind of conventional looking beauty - long hair, fit body, and sexy. I shudder now to look back on those days. Talk about innocence lost…

Yet anyone who knew me then, would have described me as “popular and happy”. But on the inside I felt like I was constantly being manipulated like a puppet. Was any decision ever going to be my own?

The next time I cut my hair off was when I was 18. The dysfunction of my family had become public knowledge when my mom started calling the college I was attending and demanding they boot me out and send me home. 

I had no idea she was doing this until the dean called me into her office threatening me with expulsion if I didn’t get my parents “under control”. As though I had any control over mentally ill people 3000 miles away. 

“What exactly would you like me to do?” I sat in shock. 

Although my roommate knew about my family’s insanity at this point, we had kept it a carefully guarded secret. Privacy was important to me. And I had been so proud of myself. I was the one paying for college. I was handling things well. Until this…

“I don’t know” she replied. “But if you don’t find a way to keep them from calling us, YOU will pay the consequences.” She practically snarled. “This is an embarrassment. We don’t allow your kind here.” 

“My kind?” 

My whole life I had been the good girl, the pleasant girl, the perfect student, the model daughter, the performer.  I was barely 18 years old having just turned it in August, the day before I boarded a plan to come to college. 

This incident was still early in the fall semester. Suddenly I realized that if I didn’t stand up for myself now, I would face a lifetime of being bullied by grownups in a way the child in me wouldn’t be able to cope with anymore.

“My kind?” I stood up to my full 5 feet 3 and 3/4 inch height. “I am a straight A student who is paying for this education myself. I am enrolled in 2 majors and two minors. Show me some respect.” 

The Dean glared at me. I glared back - albeit through my tears.
I leaned forward .

“And furthermore, I may not have a degree yet but I am fairly certain that it is illegal to threaten a student for the actions of others.” I turned and walked out of the room as the Dean started to say something I didn’t hear.

As I was returning to my dorm room I ran into a friend - a local boy who had quickly become like a big brother. “Hey can you give me a ride to the Valley? I want to cut my hair off.” 

He laughed and said “Man you are wild. Okay let’s do this.” 

I didn’t think to ask where he was taking me. Not that it mattered. I was new to Los Angeles and had no idea where to go anyway. I sat in silence on the ride as he kept up a steady stream of chatter trying to cheer me up from whatever it was bothering me.

Because he didn’t know. Soon that would change. The school told almost everyone. Literally. It was horrific. But for the moment, my secret was still fairly private.

“Wahla!” He drove me to where he had gotten has hair cut since he was a kid. A barbershop specializing in little boy cuts. I wish I was joking.

Inside the barber tilted his head at me “Are you sure about this?” 

“Do it!” I said with all the force and dignity I could muster as I sat astride a children’s carousel horse. 

Yes, you heard me folks. My first grownup haircut in which I FINALLY had control over my own body was done by a children’s barber as I sat in the kiddie seat.

You can laugh. I still do to this day when I look back on this moment. 

But something about that experience emboldened me. And even though I kept growing my hair out - still stuck in the belief that my identity was tied to my longer hair - that one brief rebellion fueled me in the months ahead. 

In truth it was an awful cut. But fortunately we all tend to look adorable when we are 18. And as I worked to move on with my life, that one moment was freeing.

It had been years since I thought about that haircut. But I was chatting via text with the first love of my life the other day. He was an older bloke I’m still friends with to this day. I sent him a video of my new do. 

It was him who reminded me - in his text back - that my hair was that length when he met me. Not long after the Dean incident. A young girl trying to be a grownup.

I think I am still trying to learn how to be a grownup. 

Over the years my hair was my armor, my shield, my beauty. I was teased that it was my super power for even being still on my head. 

It had been dyed black, blonde, red (I am so not a redhead), tiger striped, Gwen Stefani blonde, blue, pink, caramel brown. My gorgeous Holland Barbie doll looking roommates in Japan once gave me chunky stripes that made me feel bold and powerful. 

Every time I colored it, I created a new internal persona for myself. Perhaps this one would help me feel strong, in control, like I could do anything.

Occasionally I cut it. 

Often though, the people who did so, wouldn’t listen to what I wanted and would botch the job. Afterwards they would insist that what they gave me was “better” than what I had asked for. 

It never was.

After a while I stopped wanting to cut my hair because I was afraid no one would listen to what I actually said. It was like I STILL couldn’t make myself be heard all these years later.

And not to say that I haven’t had some amazing stylists. But as I carefully chose who I would go to in any particular town, I was very insistent that we only dealt with color and rarely allowed trims unless necessary. 

The sight of scissors gave me shivers and not in anticipation. Until…

I was sitting in a local coffee shop two weeks before New Year’s and it suddenly occurred to me what I wanted to leave behind in 2024. As I saw my reflection in the front window, it was like my hair was a memory stick outlining the horrors I had experience in the past few years:

The bottom two inches had been with me that day in 2020 when I lost every account, the world shut down, and I had to call my best friend to find out what the fuck was this virus named after a beer.

It had been the hair I had when I woke gasping each day in quarantine thinking I was suffocating as I dreamt of masks and masked strangers. 

Then there was the hair at my shoulders when a man pushed me so far off the balcony in Florida that had he let go of it, I would have plummeted over. I remembered wondering if the strands - weakened by being bleached so often would break off in his hand.

And of course this length of hair was with me when I started over again in Phoenix and began dancing again. It was the hair I tossed around and felt made me sexy as I created content online, and then drove across country to a new home in New York. 

But as I gazed in my reflection in the cafe window I realized this hair was as worn out as I had been. Only I wasn’t tired anymore. It was time to let it go. So I walked over to Michael’s salon, showed him my inspiration photos, and booked my appointment.

A week later, as I sat in the chair, I smiled at my reflection. “Are you ready?” Michael asked. 

“Yes!” I announced. I’m not going to lie. A part of me was nervous. 

Yet as the hair fell to the floor with each snip, I kept feeling pounds of weight fall off my shoulders. 

And when we were finished I knew that I had made the right decision. Because when Michael had me look in the mirror I looked…

Beautiful.
Vibrant.
Bouncy.

But most importantly I looked like …me.

And I felt…
Strong.
Powerful.
Totally autonomous.

Hey 2024. My hair and I are ready for you.
Let’s do this.

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