An Ode To My Hair

It hit me at lunch today. Tomorrow, I'm going to cut off my hair. 12 whole inches of it (maybe more if I'm in a good mood). And I started to freak out, quite honestly. I finally realized what I had gotten myself into, and that there was inded no way out. I'm can't let that little girl down. Tonight, I'm going to stand in front of my mirror and prepare for this mentally. I'm going to take several deep breaths, and tell myself that I can do this. It may sound silly, but Kelly did it before she got her hair cut last night and it worked for her.

I must say that parting with my hair is harder than I thought it would be. The last time I cut my hair was December 10, 2000, the day after my grandmother died. It was Chinese superstition, or tradition to cut your hair the day after someone's death, and then not to cut it again for 3 months afterwards or 11 days or something like that. Something about scissors and the whole cutting motion being bad lcuk or bad karma or some jive like that. Well, it's been two and a half years since I took a pair of scissors to my hair...and now that I'm finally going to do it, I feel that there's some sort of symbolic re-birth here. Re-brith of me, of my grandma...who knows. There's sentimental attachment, that's for sure. And...I just love my hair. For the last few days, I've been noticing all the little nuances and appreciating everything about my tresses.

Every time I pass by a reflective surface, I look in it and check out the length of my hair/ponytail. I love the way it flows down my back and how it swishes from side to side when I walk. When I'm standing around and feeling bored, I put my hands behind my back and play with the ends. They tickle my fingers. People say I will save tons of money on shampoo, but I bet for the next couple of weeks I'll still use a palm-sized dollop of the stuff, forgetting that I don't have all that much hair to wash anymore. In the winter, when I get chilly, I wrap my hair around my neck (it goes around twice) to warm up. I love how it keeps my shoulders and the sides of my arms warm too. It tickles my elbows. I will miss my Operation Putting on Backpack (move hair to left shoulder, put right strap on, move hair to right shoulder, put left strap on, move hair to back, ta-da! backpack on). I caress it a lot, bring it to my nose and take a good whiff of Herbal Essences. It tickles my face. Braiding my hair give my arms a good workout. Flipping it behind my shoulder may cause pain to someone's eye nearby, and if you sat behind me in class, you shouldn't have been too surprised to find it lying on your desk. Although I've never tried it, I know I could totally pull off the Princess Leia look. When I lie down, it fans out around my head, it flows in the wind, it makes me feel like a girl. I love being a girl. And even though it gets caught (and consequently pulled out) in chairs, buttons, sleeves, zippers, locker doors, car doors, seatbelts, backpacks, purses, hands, earrings, hairclips, you-name-it-my-hair-gets-caught-in-it, I still love my hair. I tucked it into my pants once.

*sigh*

Think of the little girl Shirley, think of the little girl....


4:03 pm