I suggested that I might talk about my hair-related issues today. Well lucky you, I feel like unloading said issues upon this very (virtual) page. Let's start with some background.
My hair, as you can see in the (now out of date) photo above, is brown and very, very thick. It started off blonde and curly, but by the time I was about eight it had gone pretty dark and most of the curliness had left it years before even then. Even from a young age I recall hating my hair. I hated a hell of alot of other things about myself then, I'll admit, but the hair issue remains still, so I guess it must be pretty rooted (no pun intended). But why did I hate my hair?
Because it never looked right. Because mum liked to make it look worse (but isn't that the job of all mothers?). Because it liked to form annoying little tufts. Because everyone else thought it was wonderful (providing they were female and over 30). Because haircuts took so long. Because thinning can really really hurt. Because it caused me all manner of grief throughout secondary school where it was often the subject of ridicule. Because, sometimes, just sometimes, it looks great and it always gets messed up or loses something by the time it's on public display. Because how good it looks affects how good I think I look generally and it looking bad makes me feel awful and ugly.
Psychiatrists make of that what you will (just don't tell me your conclusions).
So this haircut on monday...
I've been dreading getting my haircut for a while now. I've kinda been growing it on and off sicne I started University, since I think I have one of those faces that is better viewed within a frame, if you'll indulge the rather conceited sounding analogy. Everytime I go home my parents and my brother ridicule it or command me to get it cut again. Last time I got away without doing so, but then ahd to shorten it a bit for work (a small disaster in and of itself). Then up to monday it had grown to it's longest yet and apart from being a bit too thick and scruffy, I really liked it. I knew that I needed it cut for my Graduation, at least so that it could be neat, but I hadn't yet found a barbers/hairdressers that I could actually trust with my long hair. I was terrified I'd find the wrong one. And guess what?
Sitting there, on the chair watching my hair get snipped away, I was worried. Then I saw myself and it looked okay and I was like, "Tidy that up a bit and it'll be fine"... If only I'd actually said that. I look at myself a while later and think, "Oh God! I look like one of the beatles!" But I reassured myself that this is only an intermediate phase and all will turn out okay. Then the guy took out the mirror and asked me if thit was alright and my face just paled. Eventually I told him that it was indeed fine (because I'm too polite and because there wasn't really anything he could do to save it) and I fumbled for the money in my wallet, handing it over with a shake and leaving the store as quickly as possible. Then I walked home at that speed one is only capable of doing when you feel the full force of angry embarrassment (something I had also experienced a few days prior to this after beign hit by an egg thrown from a student flat as I walked home from Eruntane's) and retreated into the bathroom before applying vast quanities of Brylcream wax to disguise the horror I had been given.
What makes it so much worse is that people keep complimenting it... It worries me that people think I can look good with, that I can suit, a haircut I so despise. It's like the feeling of horror I get hearing my voice on recording after not hearing it for a while and thinking "Everything anybody ever said about me is justified by that voice. If only they could all hear the voice I hear and see the me I see."
Of course if everyone did then I'd probably lose as many admirers as I'd gain. I have to be thankful that people do see me differently from me, because I'd never love myself the way other people can. And missing out on that would be terrible. Plus many of things I probably thinka re "great" about me are possibly lies anyway. We never really see our true selves, even fi we think we are the sole keepers of such a conception. No one see's all of a person, except (if you believe in such a thing, I do) God. If He manages to love you after seeing the spiritual equivalent of the Full Monty, then He must be pretty cool, right?
And whoah, how did a talk about hair get so deep? Time to call it a night I think...
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