Ever since the moment Demi Moore lifted her tear soaked eyes, sappy music playing in the background the ghost of Patrick Swayze shimmering before her, I've been obsessed with short hair. I was mesmerized by the way her dark bangs framed her tear stained face and the way it showed off her perfect cheekbones. While everyone else was screaming, “I want Patrick Swayze” I was screaming, “I want that hair!” I've toyed with my hair constantly: cutting it short, letting it grow, dying it this color and that. Once "back in the day" (also known as thee 80's) I shaved one side. As I grew older and took on the mom label, asymmetrical hair in vibrant colors hair, for the most part, been traded in for a fairly standard brown mid length bob… in other words I have been relegated to sporting boring hair.
I’m a little fascinated by hair. The way it can be changed, the way it is perceived and the way society believes a woman's hair communicates some idea of the woman's character or personality: blonde bombshell or dumb blonde; fiery redhead or dark and exotic, dark versus light heroine. I have been so fascinated in fact that my thesis in graduate school was on hair imagery in Victorian literature as a metaphor for gender performance. I never finished the thesis (became a social worker instead) but the hold hair has on me continued.
My first challenge on my journey of living fearless was to cut off all my hair. It was actually longer than it had been in a long time and I was kinda digging it. I felt youthful and that the long hair hit my real age from the world fairly well. But a nagging persisted that it was time to take the plunge, and the fact that my hair was so long actually made it scarier to chop off.
Why is cutting your hair scary? Cutting my hair was changing the way society was going to look at me. Instead of the mommy cut, I wanted a hip, cool chic haircut. What if the world laughed, "who does she think she is? She is not hip, cool, or chic! What a loser." But living fearless is about stripping way, sloughing off and being true to myself, but mostly it is about using the fear to propel myself forward instead of freezing up and getting nowhere.
After three months of deliberation with my wonderful stylist, Lindsay, I walked into the salon and said, “do it!” Lindsay happily complied. Holding a lock of my hair in her hand she confidently snipped it off before I had time to think about it. I immediately felt lighter and giddy, happy with my decision.
Once I got home I decided that while I like the haircut itself, I didn’t like what it revealed. With no long hair to hide behind, I forced to view all my imperfections; the small lines around the eyes and mouth, the sagging skin, the weight and the age. I felt old and in some odd way left behind that in chopping off my hair, I had also chopped up the part of myself that I felt was youthful. My short hair left nowhere to hide from the signs of age marching across my face. I wasn’t happy.
While everyone complimented my new do, all I saw were imperfections, but as the weeks went on I stopped thinking of ways to save money for plastic surgery and began to negotiate a tenuous peace treaty with the old hag in the mirror. For starters I could stop referring to her as “the old hag.”
Short hair revealed the good, the bad and the ugly and forced me to stop hiding from my imperfections and develop a sense of acceptance: Don't be afraid, it's just me. I took hold of what I could change. I began to run, exercise and delve deeper into my yoga practice and develop of feeling of health and well-being that my laugh lines couldn’t erase.
Never really warmed up to the hair and have broken out the headbands, barrettes and ball caps as I struggle to grow it out. Easier now that I know what is underneath.
Chopping off my hair was an excavation to the truth. It brought to the surface some lines on the face, some extra weight, but a good mom, a strong body that has miraculous healing powers. Strong.Whole. Healthy. Perfect.
