Cutesy Hair

Today I fix my head. I looked in the mirror last week and really took a good gander at myself. In the heat of moving and all that jazz, I neglected to notice it had been three months since my last hair appointment. My roots are several inches long, my ends are snagging and I look like Raggedy Ann ass.

So today I get to look pretty. I do nothing with my hair other than occasional hair appointments and washing and brushing it. So the contrast between the me who walks out of a salon with a shiny vibrant style, and the me on any other day where I've done jack is quite striking. Night and day, actually. So whether I can afford it or not, I'm going out tonight to show off my hair.

I've been growing it long. Long hair has been a long-standing dream of mine. I achieved it once in childhood. Grade four I quit getting haircuts and by the end of grade five, my hair was long, long, long. The ends were awful, but being 10, I wasn't concerned. Then I cut it to my shoulders on a whim in grade six. Some kind of fashion at the time to have shoulder-length hair. Le sigh. Le conformity. Such is grades six through twelve.

I had this punky little 'do in grade eleven with large blonde streaks in the front framing my face to my chin, with it cut very short in the back. My best friend was with me when I got that done. I know now she never cared for that look, but was diplomatic about it at the time. My mom came to pick me up afterwards and nearly drove into a pole. She was diplomatic too. Focused on how much she loved the cut, avoided any comment on the large blonde highlights surrounding my face.

And it's been various lengths of short since. And one thing has been consistent. I get called cute. Being called cute is a side effect of being incredibly short. When you have little boobage and a baby face (I think it's my cheeks) you have no hope of escape. Short hair, while flattering technically, seals the cute in and locks it down.

Cute is nice and all. In fact, I think that since I've been labelled as cute all my life, I've learned to grow into the part. But I'm nearly 27 now. I'd really like to attract more adult compliments. I can't help but feel like a kitten or puppy equivalent when I'm called cute. It's fine on occasion, but not on a regular basis. And being mistaken for 15 when I was 21, and a grade eight grad instead of a high school grad, and being taken for 13 of all things recently, which is half my damn age, well... it's gotten old.

I want to be called pretty or beautiful. I'd settle for pretty (Except from the Dude. I want top-tier compliments from him). And when I look back in my life, the first and only time I was ever called beautiful in my whole childhood was in grade five when I had long hair.

So today is a trim and a colour update. I'm not sure how long I need my hair, but I think I'll know it when I get there. A lot of women cut their hair shorter as they get older to look more mature. I find I need to do the exact opposite.

On a related note, I love that I'll be in my Halloween costume with a fresh hairdo. Something about that gives me a tickle in my heart.