Hair Cut

For almost as long as I could talk, I’ve aspired to a waterfall of shining hair waving down my back. Long hair was beautiful, glamorous, sexy, and magical. Barbies had long hair. So did Lady Lovely Locks (of course), Polly Pocket, and the Fashion Star Fillies (showing my age here). A little later, Jo March, Anne Shirley, and Rapunzel all regarded the shearing of their luscious locks as a small (at least) tragedy. I am now an avid student of belly dance, a subculture where long hair is very common. In fact, long, thick hair is such an important prop that in Cairo (the New York of belly dance) nearly all professionals have extensions or wear a wig when performing.

I realize, of course, that other people think differently. My own boyfriend prefers short hair on women (though he’s never pushed me one way or the other). A quick internet search reveals plenty of people (male and female) who agree with him.

But, to me, short hair seems practical and, at best, cute. Short hair is what happens when you’re a tomboy who just doesn’t care, or when you have a baby and want something they can’t pull, or when you start suffering from female-pattern baldness. The one exception is for women with divine bone structure like Natalie Portman or my cousin, M. When M cut her thick, wavy, shiny hair into a buzz, it only better revealed her large eyes and high cheekbones. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

However, genetics are not on my side. Long hair stretches my already-long face. Also, my hair is naturally thin and wavy, and tended toward frizzy or see-through when long. I tried all one length. I tried layers. I tried curling with pin curls, foam curls, and hot curls. I tried a variety of products and washing methods. Heck, I even tried not washing my hair with any form of cleanser (that lasted three days, until my hair took on the solid sheen of a piece of varnished wood). No dice. It just never looked right. The only time I was really comfortable with my hair was when I had it up in a bun. My hair sticks looked interesting from the back, but made my hair almost a visual non-player from the front.

So, I took the plunge and asked my sister to bob it—my first major cut since 2003. And it looks…cute. I got one “aw, I liked it better long” and a whole bunch of “oh, it looks great!” at work. Fortunately, my natural waviness works well with short hair, so it’s wash-and-go. And, I’ve thought of a variety of ways to fix it when “wash and go” isn’t good enough.

I’ll never have long, shining waves down my back, I’ll never be a ballerina when I grow up, and I’ll never again subject my feet to the agony of strappy slingbacks. Instead, I’ll take my cute butt (fed by engineering, shaped by belly dance) on the town in my cute-but-sensible ballet flats and my cute bob. I won’t be a fairy princess. I’ll just be cute and young and having fun. Oh, well.