My Hair and I

Perhaps my longest and most tumultuous relationship in life has been the one I have with my hair. Yes, perhaps this admission is slightly shallow; however, for those other gals out there who have coarse, curly, thick mops, I bet that you understand my sentiment. While I have, for the most part, grown out of temper tantrums born of humid summer days or rainy day events, my hair still tends to present a meeting of the minds that guarantees a difference of opinion.

Recently, when I attended my cousin's bachelorette weekend on Nantucket, she made reference to our genetic hair curse and we all laughed recollecting the bad haircuts (especially those administered by our mothers) over the years that we struggled to tame--since all of us seemed to inherit this hair from our fathers--leaving our mothers with a sense of wonder at what to do with the foreign textures emerging from our scalps. 

Because of the trauma connected to my hair, I have rarely departed from some mild variation of the same haircut since late high school when I finally developed some management techniques, which is why it came as a surprise--even to me--when I marched into the hair salon two days ago and demanded a change. My hairdresser looked at me skeptically and laughed, until she realized I was serious. 

So, while I had hoped that my hair would magically ignore years of cowlicks and history and manage to look like this:

Instead, it followed its predictable pattern and looked more like this:

When I talked to my friend that night (who I totally blame for my bad haircut, as I usually consult with her in all stages of the haircare process and she was, you know, busy having a baby or something!), she begged for a picture so that she could have a good laugh. At least, on the bright side, my hair grows fast, so, hopefully, by the time I go back to work my fringe bangs will be long enough that the kids do not begin calling me Ms. Muppet. In the meantime, I look like I am wearing a bad wig or I am emulating one of The Beatles, but at least, as my friend pointed out, now I know for sure that fringe bangs are not a good look...