fine, i’ll say it. i regret my haircut.
that’s actually a lie – i liked it when i first chopped it, when it framed my face as a true bob should, a sharp line drawn below my chin. it’s weird now, medium length, just barely starting to creep past my shoulders so it’s too long to wear down but still too short to put up. aesthetic purgatory.
my hair was short just one other time in my adult life, when i was 18 and mostly too stoned to remember to look in the mirror. i am working on giving myself the grace i would afford to anyone else grappling with post-haircut regret:
it’s just hair. it grows back!
when i can swallow my uncomfortable but ultimately inconsequential remorse i feel proud of myself for jailbreaking my comfort zone and trying on a new self. it doesn’t fit and that’s fine. i could do lots of hypothetical things and only know afterward how they make me feel, which i guess makes most things worth trying, or not.
on the morning i sloughed off my old locks, arriving at my last two hours with hair down to my crooked sternum, i remembered the night before A telling me he’d miss it – the way it swung behind me, running his fingers through it, feeling it brush softly over his skin. i almost cried. i thought about how much my hair and i had experienced together, how many shapes it’d taken depending on where in the world, in my world, i was. the way i’d leaned on it – to hide, to cover up, to disappear. and also to feel pretty, feel feminine, feel powerful.
almost out of the blue like a religious revelation i felt ready to release the identity i perceived as attached to that hair, and people told me not to do it because oh my long hair was so beautiful!, which feels a lot to me like telling someone to pursue a career as a mathematician because they’re good at multiplication. i felt ready to explore a new iteration of self, a woman unafraid to be lighter, more seen, to have more of herself come into clear and complete view.
i was, i am, experimenting with choice, going with my gut without confirmation of outcome, without the emotional crutch of 100% enthusiastic support from everyone i might consult with pre-decision. i was freeing myself, all that weight i carried around for six years, let it fall to the dirty floor with an old life i was, at last, content to leave.
it’s interesting the way every major decision i’ve ever made has felt so disproportionately heavy with potential consequence rather than potential reward. the other night at work E told me when you say yes to something, you’re inevitably saying no to a bunch of other stuff. but it’s the same for every no – corresponding yeses are implied. i want to think more about those yeses when i need to say no, the open door and not the shut one, a sort of consolation prize to soften the blow of a boundary erected.
i guess i’m growing out of i should have known. the good thing is i can finally tuck my bangs behind my ears, which makes it a lot easier to see all the breathtaking browns and grays february left in its wake. it took me a long time to muster up the confidence to admit it, but i am simply not capable of wielding bangs. again, i’m glad i tried. they don’t suit me and my time for convincing myself that they do has elapsed. if you have bangs, i love you and please continue to be superior. i’m being 100% serious right now.
decay-hued cityscape aside i’m almost scared for summer to come because i’m scared of it going away again. which i assume is totally normal. i’m under the impression most people have trouble anticipating and then fully enjoying joy, which brings me to ephemerality, #1 on my list of intangible things i would make out with. her credits include love, pleasure, heartbreak, loss. a noncommittal genius with range.
people talk shit about florida, but most of them have never lived there in march. i don’t remember ever feeling the way i’ve felt lately when i lived in florida, not even tits deep in tallahassee’s most toxic relationship™. would you guys be pissed if it really was just about going outside? i’ve never met a japanese magnolia that couldn’t talk me off a ledge, and i consider my most notable winter kumquat experiences on par with your run-of-the-mill mdma. i guess old habits die hard. or get hypothermia or whatever. what i’m trying to say is i’m ready for spring, or maybe i could settle for, maximum, one more snowstorm.
to me the smooth, untouched duvet of freshly fallen snow evokes the same sort of delicious, heart-stopping, god-stricken fear i feel when i see a beautiful woman. it’s perfect and unbothered and seductive, yet unapproachable on account of its transience, something to be appreciated rather than disturbed. like i said, i’m from florida. the silent white of a post-storm dawn is still otherworldly, always a dream inside a dream.
according to a new master list of modern etiquette rules*, it’s a faux pas to describe your dreams, which i resent on behalf of my own dreams, which are far more interesting than anyone else’s dreams as far as i can tell, and absolutely worth hearing about. how is it that we’ll binge-consume fantasy and fiction with insatiable fervor, but we can’t even pretend to be interested in dreams in which we’re not given, at the very least, supporting roles? if you want to tell someone about your dream, just work them into the storyline. finally, the creative solution you’ve been waiting for!
*said list also refers to astrology as “made-up star bullshit,” so how credible can it really be?
the sun came out the other morning which was unexpected and at first unwelcome so i decided to walk to the park in hopes of becoming a more cheerful sort of person. on the way i saw an orange cat sitting in a stained glass window, its head obscured by color so i couldn’t tell if it was seeing me see it. i loved the quiet spectacle of it all, the pristine sublimity, the effortless drama reminiscent of a google image search for “winter.” when you live in a cauldron bubbling with abstractions, sometimes on-the-nose is a welcome change of pace.
down the sidewalk i stopped to study the trees for weeks i’d considered stark naked and saw tiny buds forming on their twiggy tips. i didn’t once think about my hair. i must have taken a thousand photos; it was like going on a date with a self i hadn’t seen in a while, and she told me the good news, that there’d be pink again. it was cold and my nose ran a half marathon and all around i saw branches bent heavy with snow, wondered if it felt to them like consequence or reward.
felt divine to stumble upon this in my mailbox today, after admiring how cute your hair looked on bereal this morning :). i can't help but love your hair, very much. & i can't help but love what creative energy it stirred within you to write this piece. i am not just flattering you when i say, i really love the way you write bb girl. keep em comin'
I haven’t been in love with a piece quite this much in some time. I even love your typography (only lowercase) - very E. E. Cummings. This piece gave me peace. It made me feel understood. Thank you.