new hair!

My hair has been driving me increasingly crazy. I challenged myself to grow it for…three years, or something. Around the time Indy was born, until my 40th birthday. And I’m now a few months shy of my 44th and had kept it long, but all I ever do with it is pull it into a ponytail, or sometimes braid it, and eventually get the ends that are wrecked from ponytail holders trimmed off. And it’s just been driving me nuts. Not the weight, but the presence. The bits sliding into my face. All of it. Just hate.

So I got it cut off yesterday.

The hairdresser, whom I’ve gone to for some time and whom I have warned since the beginning that someday I would come in and tell her to cut it all off, still asked me four times if I was sure.

I was sure. She said, after a while, “It’s so weird to actually get to *cut* someone’s hair. Usually people are really precious about their hair and want a millimeter off. This is really strange!”

“Have you had short hair before?” she asked. “All my life,” I said. “Long hair is not my norm.”

“…I actually don’t remember what you looked like with long hair,” she said, upon finishing. “It’s like you’ve always come in for this haircut. This is your haircut!”

Which is true, but I still almost don’t recognize myself. Except it also looks more like me than long hair, so that’s confusing. :)

I’d told Indy I was going to get my hair cut almost as short as his. He thought that was pretty funny. This morning when he saw me, he gasped and said, “Cute haircut! It IS almost as short as mine!”

I managed not to use a gallon of shampoo (in fact, I was trying so hard not to I didn’t use quite enough!) but I forgot I wouldn’t need two towels anymore. It took two seconds to blow it dry and spritz some stuff into it for shape and then I was done and it was wonderful.

I figured my head would be cold and feel weirdly light for a couple of days, and I was prepared, upon walking out of the hairdresser’s, to go BRRR! Except I didn’t. It just felt RIGHT and FINE and GOOD. And the only time my head felt lighter was *immediately* after she took the first really big hunk off the back. It’s just felt *better* since then.

So I’m glad I whacked it all off.