Last night I got a haircut.
I’m still trying to get decent pictures so I won’t post those until tonight, but I still wanted to go ahead and talk about it because, as is usually the case with my hair, it took forever and a day and the stylist and I spent a lot of time talking.
See, I’m still getting used to talking about the book. When people ask me what I do, it is easy to say I am an editor but telling them I am a writer isn’t as automatic. And when they ask what I write, I don’t really have any easy, shortform answer. Because there is fiction and the odd spot of crafty and makeupy stuff and a lot of fat acceptance blogging. Fortunately, she knew what blogs are. That makes the whole conversation a LOT easier.
And so we talked about body acceptance in general and about fat acceptance in particular and about how, despite her being a tiny little thing, she has always considered herself overweight because she was over the weight her mother thought she should be. It was a sad sort of thing to hear because it’s just the sort of baggage that gets passed on from mother to daughter.
Then she mentioned that she keeps her own hair long because she thinks her face looks fat with short hair. That a lot of women think that. I laughed because she was cutting and cutting and cutting all of my hair off. *grin* Obviously, I am not one of those women.
But I was reminded how, as a kid, my hair was a huge issue for me. My mom wanted me to blow dry it straight when it was just wavy but it crossed the line to curly at one point and then the real trouble began. It always looked too wild. And I wasn’t diligent about brushing it (which just DESTROYS natural curl, by the way). And it was tangly. And I should French braid it. And and and.
I fought her tooth and nail, though, because everyone thought my curly hair was just so pretty. It has, since those childhood days, been the prettiest thing about me – which I particularly believed when I was in the depths of hating myself because I was fat. And so it became a strange sort of, not security blanket per se, but repository for my identity. I was the girl with the curly hair. And then I was the girl with the REALLY LONG curly hair. It was how people identified me. It was an alternative to being “the fat girl.” And, obviously, now I know there is nothing wrong with that but I hadn’t worked that out just yet when I was a kid. *laugh*
And now I am not. And looking in the mirror is very strange because the entire shape of my hair is different and, despite wearing the same glasses and ridiculous makeup and having, you know, the exact same face, I don’t look like myself to me.
I have yet to take a picture of it that I like and I suspect that has more to do with the alternate reality version of myself that I am seeing and far less to do with the haircut being a monstrosity of any sort.
But some 10-year old part of me has clung to the idea of my hair as my best feature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I cut it and I do think it looks really good. It’s just that moving beyond the comfort zone is HARD sometimes.
14 Comments
I followed a similar follicular path. Mine led not to a short haircut, but to a totally liberating set of dreadlocks. I’ve never felt more “me”, and I am no longer chained to thoughts of ideal beauty.
I’m excited about living with the freedom of a short haircut should I decide it’s time for the locks to go. I envy your first-shower-after-a-haircut experience! I always loved that.
I’m the same, except I’m the girl with the long red hair. Half of me so wants to cut it off, and half of me is hiding under the bed, convinced there’s an army of scissors coming to take away my pretty. I almost did it a month ago, but chickened out.
I can’t wait to see the pictures!
I remember when I cut my hair last summer…it was the first time a pair of scissors had touched my hair in several years, so there was a lot of split ends and dead hair that needed to be removed. It was short and spiky in the back, and a little longer in the front. I understand the going out of your comfort zone thing; that was the shortest my hair had ever been, so it took a lot of getting used to. On top of that, I also got a new piercing, and about three weeks after cutting my hair, I started seminary. The month of August was a total out of comfort zone experience. But it was a really good one. Short haircuts are freeing, enjoy it!
Cutting my hair actually did wonders for me in terms of body and fat acceptance. I’ve always had wavy, frizzy hair and I’ve always thought it was ugly and horrible – now that it’s short, I feel a million times more confident. And it DOESN’T make my face look fatter.
I had similar experiences, both growing up and being “that girl with the long curly hair”. I’ve cut mine off and grown it out a bunch of times, but every time I do I have this healthy moment of terror.
Last night I had my hair cut shorter than it’s been in nine years, and while my stylist is so great and I am so dependent on her that she practically owns my soul, while she was cutting and cutting I kept going “AAAAACCCCKKKK” in my head. I like it, and I knew I’d like it, but the experience is always shocking.
And truthfully, my face really does look fatter with shorter hair – mostly because you can see my chins from all sides. The beauty of it, though, is that I don’t fucking care.
Yes! It’s like the bizzarro you in the mirror, so similar yet sooo different. The hair thing for me, too is tough. I’ve always been the big redheaded gal. No denying, never really tried to. But when I got married my hair was down to my butt. I hated taking care of it but I wanted it just so for the wedding. Right after the reception, I got it hacked off! Very liberating. The stylist kept asking, “Are you sure you want me to keep cutting?” Ha!
When I got my hair cut off, the weirdest thing was washing it. I’d reach down to grab my hair and wash it and there would be none there! And it felt so light. That was years ago though, and I’ve grown it back out since. I’ve realised it’s actually quite low maintenance when it’s long, I can just wash it, put some hair serum in it, and let it go wavy, and it looks super pretty.
Even though my hair has been short for years now, I totally relate to this. I thought I was so ugly in high school, but I had this long, thick, wavy hair that you could identify from blocks away. It was like a mask. Having long (or awesome in some other way) hair doesn’t *have* to be like that, but I think it’s easy to think that way when you’re a teenager, especially. I know I was also reacting against having had short hair in my prepubescent days, so that I got mistaken for a boy a lot–having long hair was a way of assuring myself that I was really a girl.
Thank god I discovered feminism and gender theory and fat acceptance, or I’d be spending hours a day washing my ankle-length hair!
I had long, very thick hair when I was little. It was so thick that when my mom tried to run a skinny comb through it, it was torture. She would put my hair up in braids with the fancy beads, but it never stayed. So when I turned 7, she had it cut short and we never looked back. Mom also keeps her hair short as well.
The last time I was at the ocean, I went into one of those booths that takes a pic of you and you choose different hairstyles and prints out pictures. The ones of me with long hair were goofy. I look best with short hair, and I don’t have to worry about it sticking to my neck during the summer. I just gel or mousse and go.
I sure identify with this — from thinking of my hair as my “best feature” — I even had a dream once (not all that many years ago) featuring my hair being commented upon by the “popular girls” with them asking — “does it really grow like that — so beautiful — right out of your head?”
I have had it short and medium and never really very long (it just grows out, not down). My blog features a really good picture of my hair on a really good hair day.
These days, I keep it medium length because putting it in a pony tail is great for swimming and working out, and because I never have enough time to get it cut frequently enough for it to look good. It’s not particularly flattering at the moment, and I need a haircut, but not a short one right now. Also, living in a colder climate (the Pacific NW) means long-ish hair helps keep my ears and neck warm!
I do like my naturally curly hair, and before it goes totally gray I’ll say that I like the color too, which so nicely matches my eyes.
Thanks for talking about such an important subject, and I can’t wait to see the new ‘do.
I envied fat girls who had long hair terribly. It was a BIG issue for me and still is really.
My thought process was that if I had the long wavy hair then at least there would be one thing nice about me. Something to hide behind but to also say look, I am acceptable.
Instead of having the fantasy of being thin I had the fantasy of having decent hair. Just like my body shape though, this is something that I had to accept I have no control over.
I actually lost what litle hair I have last year due to a skin disease and it made me a little more grateful for what I have.
Can’t wait to see the pictures!
I had a hard time adjusting when I cut my hair from hip-length to shoulder-length back in high school. It was a hot mess, but I clung to it in the belief that it looked better on a fat girl. I actually kept the cut-off braid for a long time! Since then I’ve had it even shorter at times. But it’s something I love playing with – cutting, dyeing, whatever. After all – it’s hair. It grows back. I’m growing it out for the first time since the big cut, but I have a haircut in a couple of weeks and I might change my mind.
I’ve always gotten the message that the body has to be minimized and controlled. Don’t have too much fat, or too much hair (head or otherwise), and restrict what’s left with bras and styling products and pantyhose and… (And don’t be extravagant with color.) It surprises me that people here aren’t saying they’ve absorbed the message that only thin girls can pull off long hair, because they make up for that excess by not having any others. Despite the reasons that people give for cutting their long hair off, and despite how happy many of them seem to be with the results, I always have a niggling suspicion that they were somewhow shamed into it.
I have to say, I’ve only ever felt shamed into NOT cutting my hair. Every time I get a hair cut, there are some people who act as though I’ve just disfigured myself. Because they, personally, love long hair or because, as a fat person, my hair was my “crowning glory” – which I’ve heard from more than one person. UGH.
There are actually a large number of women in Orlando with really long hair – tailbone seems quite common, with everything in between that and ankle-length being pretty well represented. I don’t know, maybe I just travel in the right spheres to observe women with long hair?
I’ve never had anyone tell me my hair was too long – quite the opposite. And if I had straight hair, I am pretty certain my hair would still be long and getting longer. But the care, at this point in my life, was killing me. And my ends were not in super health either because, when I started, I hadn’t planned on growing it out quite so much. Next time I grow my hair out – and I will because I do love it long as well – it will be planned ahead of time so that I can keep the hair as healthy as possible.