Just my confidence and me

I couldn't take it anymore. After months (no, actually years) of being patient and trying to cope and the occasional professional assistance, I finally just gave up today.

And got all my hair cut off.

It was done so quickly that I didn't even have time to think about how I liked looking over my shoulder in the mirror on a day when I painstakingly used the flatiron, to see my long straight black hair reaching the center of my back, a length I last saw when I was 8 years old.

It was just too heavy, too flat, and too much work. Drying took a long time, and styling was a nightmare.

I love to look good, but right now I'm not feeling so great about myself. To use a cliche, I feel trapped in my own body - I don't have a lot of clothes that fit exactly the way I'd like them too, and sometimes I see myself in the mirror and think "holy crap, is that really me?" And that's when I bother to look in the mirror. Plus it's hot, and feeling fat when it's hot is just about the worst thing ever.

So I decided to lighten up (the easy way first). I made an appointment at Paule Attar Salon, my old standard even though my favorite stylist EVER, Lindsay, moved to Boston a couple of years ago. I took a chance today on a stylist I had never met before but is one of their most experienced. She was, of course, gorgeous and thin, with that perfect straight black hair that eludes me. That gave me pause at first.

But then we talked about my inability to handle my own hair and not being able to re-create that perfect blowout that you get right after a haircut. I told her about my hair's quirks - the super curly parts underneath, the sort of waviness all over, and the frizzy yuck that happens when it dries on its own. I felt self-conscious about this - after all, it was just a haircut, and one of the many she'd have to do today, and in the grand scheme of the world's problems, it seemed like a lot of talking for something so trivial. But I needed her to help me figure out the perfect haircut for the way my hair and my life are NOW.

Not what I wish it would be - long, silky, glorious Lucy Liu hair, or gently wavy, gorgeous Jessica Alba hair, or cute, spunky, spiky short Meg Ryan hair. I'm none of those people and I also don't have an armada of stylists to help me get ready every morning.

What I got is perfect. It's shorter than it's been in a long time, just below chin length. She put some goo in it and dried it partially with a diffuser to keep some of the waves in, and then added some shine goo to keep the frizz down. Literally, the entire shampoo, cut and style took less than 45 minutes, which is half the time of the usual long layered/blowout cut I've been getting. Woo hoo. I think the actual styling portion took 5 minutes. Tops.

I feel better already. Funny how hair can do that.