Expression
A couple years ago I wrote a post about people being more than any one body part, but a lot of people can feel very tied to certain aspects of their physicality. Identity can be connected with specific parts or the accessories we wear. For a long time my “signature” has been glasses, big boobs, and very long hair.
I’d been “threatening” to chop off my hair for years now. Over the last several months it occurred to me that I wanted to try to do something useful if I was going to take this huge step and make such a drastic change. So I was looking up programs for hair donation. Locks of Love is very well-known in name, but I’ve heard not so good things about them. Then I saw Wigs 4 Kids and that certainly sounded better. Quite coincidentally, a post was going around which mentioned Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program. It sounds cool.
With that, I decided to wait until after my workshop to do it. In talking to my sister just last night, I had a bit of a light-bulb moment. I suddenly realized my long hair was partly a security blanket. I could hide behind it. Maybe I was even tying in my expression of femininity to my long hair. Very much stereotyping. There was also an element of the idea that fat people don’t look good with short hair that was holding me back.
Frankly, all of that is just absolute bullshit and logically I know that, but having the conscious thought somehow reduced the pressure, my wibbliness around it, and gave me the freedom to embrace this choice.
I can express my femininity in lots of other ways and maybe, who knows, I’ll feel the call to embrace masculine elements of myself, too. Expression and identity are fluid. How beautiful is that?
Ultimately, what makes me me is not how long my hair is or whether I wear Ray-Bans (and I do!), but it’s the summation of all the things in my life, the way I am in the world, and interact with others. I am my passions and drives, my joys and my sorrows, my failures and my successes. I am multifaceted and my hair was just a part of that.
Time to put all of that into action.
You are BEAUTIFUL! It’s so awesome that you took the leap and made such a big change! I LOVE your short hair. 🙂
Your short hair looks good. 🙂
I’ve had long hair my whole life. The shortest I ever cut it was shoulder length. It’s back down to my butt again now and I desperately want to get it cut. It’s just in my way and a PIA. But I really hate going to the salon. It that whole social anxiety thing. I’ve come really close to hacking it off myself but then I know I’ll look like a dork.
You’ve heard bad things about Locks of Love? I hate to hear that. I’ve donated to them three times over the years. The last time, I didn’t even get an email back to thank me so, that kind of turned me off from donating to them again.