Chopped and Free - A Letter to My Hair
Dear Hair,
Wow, you sure can say a lot about a person. You talk a lot about someone's personality, their likes, dislikes, family backgrounds, religious beliefs and even favorite colors. You definitely speak awesome words through the chic who does you all up fancy cause she's going on a hot date, or through the neatly groomed and modern cut of the confident corporate exec who just landed that huge deal. But sometimes you also whisper the dark stuff too, like if someone's hiding in shame, being controlled or hurt, like that kid who's mom is slapping her around, so she hides her cheekbone bruise with you. It's a little ridiculous too, how we judge people's motives and decide their worth based on what style and color of you they have. I know I have.
You're pretty cool hair, I mean, God could have made humans bald right? Just left you out and then we wouldn't have to fuss with shampoo, conditioner, cutting you, styling you in the morning when you're a moppy mess. But then I think just maybe, God put hair on humans just cause it adds some added fizz, some zest, creativity and wild uniqueness into the world.
My wild uniqueness came in the form of white blonde and straight baby fuzz, that turned into thick white blonde waves which turned into full on white girl afro massive curls when I hit that wonderful time of puberty. Not gonna lie, that last version of you was NOT my favorite. By the time it got long I really did not like you. Tangles, FLUFFINESS, massive, curly and just really big and annoying are all things that come to mind. Plus, all my friends in Hawaii had better types of you, in my past opinion: long and dark and straight and thin and sleek and perfect hair. And then there was my mop. Somewhere along the line I decided I detested you. You weren't meant to be seen I resolved.
Long hair, I am so sorry for how I treated you. Brushed you with the anger of a bull against a matador and then pulled you tight and flat against my head and wound you in an ugly ball on the back of my head. Finally I slapped you flat and sleek against my skull with a crunchy and truly horrifying layer of heavy duty sports gel. The truth is, I hated you. Well, more truthfully, hated God for putting you on my head, but hated you nonetheless.
I know you remember, but somehow, after a few years of that awfulness, with the help of loving people and the courage to love myself: I let that crunchy shell soften, the one around my heart too. I took a crazy and scary step of literally and metaphorically "letting my hair down", freeing you from your restricted life and the day you and I danced with Jesus outside and you whipped around my head so wonderfully, I did start to like you. The first time I wore you down in public, I was literally shocked at the compliments people were giving me about you! "Ah, your hair is gorgeous.", "Such beautiful curls", or "WOW, i LOVE YOUR HAIR" were common ones I got a lot. "How could people love my hair?" I used to think. It wasn't false modesty. I genuinely did not see what other people apparently saw about you! It took a few more years but slowly I actively began embracing you. Saying things like "I do like my hair" and "I like what I can do with it" and "IT IS BEAUTIFUL" really did help me learn to love you. The plethora of compliments I seemed to get everywhere sure helped as well! And more and more, the loving I was doing for my hair, started bleeding over into loving myself as a whole more and more! So, my beautiful long hair, THANK YOU. Thank you for being an amazing and powerful catalyst and tool to help me love and accept myself. Thank you for helping learn to embrace the cray cray fluffiness. Thank you for helping me realize that my hair was an indication of the type of person I am, loud, joyful, shiny, someone who needs to stand out and be noticed. Thank you for helping me learn how to receive a genuine compliment and help others be inspired to love their own versions of you!
Now, my beautiful long hair, your time is done. You don't serve me anymore. I started using you for exactly the thing you helped me get over: self hatred. What I mean by that is this: I started thinking I wouldn't be beautiful without you being ridiculously long. I realized I was living for the compliments people gave me about you. Plus, more and more people exclaimed "DON'T EVER CUT YOUR HAIR!" I know it was meant as a compliment, but I didn't want to disappoint people for so long that I started being enslaved by those comments.
Long hair, you served me for a while, so thank you! Now, good bye after 12 years, with no hard feelings!
SHORT CURLY crazy hair!! AHHHH, I have wanted you for a while now, but I procrastinated making a decision to make you into what you are now! I was seriously scared that having you would mean I lose out of hair compliments, I was scared that I would not like you, that I would have chopped off my beauty and that I would be stuck with you for years until Long Hair came back. Sorry short hair, for making you wait, please forgive me for not embracing you sooner. You were in my gut. When I quieted my soul down enough to hear the desire of my heart, you were pointed out to me!
Short crazy hair, you're my symbol of CUTTING FREE. You're my outward expression of LETTING GO of what doesn't serve who God made me to be. You'r my symbol of cutting free especially from the fear of disappointing others. But also, you're my symbol of letting go of the relationships, obligations, expectations of others and opinions that aren't in line with my truth and the destiny God made me for. Thank you for being there to help me have a physical expression of my evolved love for myself and help me realize that my beauty does not come from my long blonde hair, but rather from the entire being that I am. It was amazing how much fear and uncertainty I had about turning you from Long to Short! But when it was done, I KNEW I made the right decision! I feel FREE! I feel liberated and ME and empowered to BE WHO I AM. TO embrace who I am, not who I think I am supposed to be!
To both my Long Hair and My now New Short Hair, thank you for your part in my journey of life, my journey to be all that God made me to be.
Thank you Hair, for your part in helping quiet the noise of people's opinions and my very talkative soul so I could listen to my GUT. Some people haven't spoken to their gut in years and I was starting to feel like I didn't know what mine sounded like either. So hair, thank you for being a part of me evolving, embracing change. Thanks for helping me learn to start not giving a rat's ass about what other people's opinions are. Thank you for being a part of the process of me standing in my truth, unashamedly.
I love you hair.
Love,
Constance
Thank you for taking a peek inside my head and hair! May this inspire you to embrace the change that you need! Yes, it will be scary, but darling, a little tiny plant has to change to become a tree. So just remember, it will be SO WORTH IT.
PS, Faith Holland at High Rollers salon in Anchorage (find her over at @faithsalonstyles on Instagram) is the rad chic who chopped and bobbed my locks! She loves helping people
look their best and helps their hair dreams
come true!
