Darlin’ don’t you go and cut your hair/
Do you think it’s gonna make him change?
I cut my hair short again. I woke up Sunday morning in a stressful state, thinking of going to JournalCon next week with my hair looking as shitty as it’s been looking lately while it grows out. Spending my weekend trying to tame the heavy clods of hair with sticky gel. Being miserable every time I looked in the mirror.
I began to panic as I realized that there was no way in the world I’d get in to see my own hairdresser before Friday morning, when I have to drive to Austin. I realized that, if I were to cut my hair, I’d have to do it that day – Sunday – at the mall.
I turned and woke up my boyfriend, Tad. “Baby… baby…. Baby, I’m gonna cut my hair.”
I don’t know why my voice trembled and sounded like a question at the end. What’d I think he’d say? “Oh, hell no”?
He said, “You should do whatever makes you happy,” without even opening his eyes, then rolled over and resumed dreaming of car wrecks and models. (I love Tad.)
I got mad at myself for being such a dumb ass. Why did I have to tell him? It’s not like he had even asked me to grow my hair out. All he’d said was, “I wonder how your hair would look long.” And even if he had asked me, what difference would it have made? Isn’t it my hair? I convinced myself that I was growing it out for me, but I wasn’t, was I?
I don’t want to grow my hair out. But some days I want it to magically become long. When I get rich, I’ll buy realistic looking wigs.
I had lunch with my friend Letty today and she talked about having the same irrationally unfeminist feelings sometimes. Like when she dented her truck the other day and found herself apprehensive about telling her boyfriend. When she stepped back and observed herself feeling that way, she became angry. It’s her freaking truck, she realized, and she can wreck it as much as she wants. But, she pointed out so cogently, our upbringing has instilled those stupid fears and desires for male approval within us.
Fuck that shit.
Now I’ve cut my hair and I’m okay. The dent on Letty’s truck isn’t so bad. But I enjoy imagining her in a monster truck arena, tearing up all the trucks and mad as hell.
I love her.
