The In-Between

I love my hair short.  I really do.  The short boy-cut style works for me.  It is easy to maintain and takes me less than 2 minutes to fix after getting out of the shower.  The first time I cut it off short like this it was absolutely liberating.  I had spent most of my life being told by the male influences in my life how beautiful my long curly hair was and how I should never cut it.  Even a trim was a no-no according to my dad.  He would get upset every time.

That’s why shortly after I graduated from college, left my ex-husband, and was facing the world on my own for the first time I decided to do something drastic and cut it all off.  I needed a change.  I needed to free myself from the idea that I had to do what everyone else wanted me to do.  At the time I just wanted a haircut, but I realized afterward the significance it actually held.  I didn’t tell anybody that I was going to do it.  When I had a day off work, I took myself down to the Great Clips (I know.  I don’t go there anymore.) on the corner and told them what I wanted.  What I received was the haircut of an 80 year old woman.  Afraid that if I said anything it would get worse, I just paid for the cut and took myself home to cry in my bathroom mirror. 

As I stared at my dreadful haircut, I decided to take matters into my own hands and grabbed some scissors.  It took quite a while, but when I finished, I absolutely loved the results.  It was scary, and liberating, and fun, but I was so nervous to show anyone.  As it turned out, there was no need to be nervous because everybody absolutely loved it.  I had spent most of my life being identified by my long, thick, curly hair and it was suddenly gone.  People finally looked beyond the hair and saw my face.  Someone (other than a boyfriend or significant other) actually called me “beautiful” and meant it.  My confidence soared.

Eventually, I got tired of the shortness because it just wasn’t fun.  I couldn’t do anything different with it and it just looked the same all the time.  I loved playing around with ponytails and updo’s and braids and there was just nothing much to experiment with when it was short.  So I started the growing out process.  The grueling growing out process.  I swore up and down that even as much as I liked my hair short I would never cut it off again because the growing out was so terrible.  There is always that in-between stage that just makes you feel so ugly and self-conscious.  I hate the in-between.

So, I grew it out, but kept a fairly short style.  Sometimes I went a little shorter and sometimes kept it longer.  I have experimented with cutting it myself many, many times and almost always like the results.  Then I got pregnant and decided that I would grow it out long again.  Then reality hit me and I decided to cut it off short again. 

Now I’m tired of the short and am stuck in the terrible in-between stage again where nothing I do can make it look any better.  Hubby sat there last night and told me, “I kind of want you to cut your hair short again because it looks really cute that way, but I like it longer too.  It’s just right now it doesn’t look so good.”  Seriously, when your husband actually notices that your hair doesn’t look good, it must really look bad.  He didn’t say it to be mean but it bugged me.  I admit that I haven’t been putting a lot of effort into fixing it up lately.  I’m more of a wash, gel, and go kind of girl and the hair right now requires a wash, blowdry, straighten out some of the curls, gel, adjust to get everything in the right place, then go kind of regimen.

This morning, since Hubby’s comment is still kind of on my mind, I took the time to actually fix my hair.  I have to admit that it does look a little better than it has recently.  Now I have to decide if I really want to grow it out or if I should just give up and cut it again and go with the easy way out.  I hate the in-between.